


I Think We'll be Okay

by iamconstantine



Series: ITWBO Continuity [1]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriages, Bisexual Character, Canon - Anime, College, Complicated Relationships, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Family, Family Drama, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, It doesn't go on for too long but PINING, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Sort Of, the first part is kind of heavy ngl, the slowest burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 192,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21766690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamconstantine/pseuds/iamconstantine
Summary: Kosuke has lost more than she ever thought she could. She's losing more every day. But she still has a family to look after, and she'll do anything for them. Just when she thinks all is lost, in walks someone she never thought she'd meet, with an offer she'd never imagined in her wildest dreams.Kyoya's heart is split in half, and he's vying for something that probably doesn't exist. But this is all he's ever known. He doesn't see any other options. The newest obstacle in his life actually isn't that much of a surprise, so why is he dreading it so much?Both have been backed into a corner, and the only thing that can save them is an arrangement that neither of them are even remotely happy about. Surprisingly, though, they have more in common than either had thought. With some time, maybe they can work something out. Live together peacefully, at least. Or maybe even something better.
Relationships: Fujioka Haruhi/Ootori Kyouya/Suoh Tamaki (Unrequited), Fujioka Haruhi/Suoh Tamaki, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Ootori Kyouya/Original Female Character(s)
Series: ITWBO Continuity [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568749
Comments: 70
Kudos: 76





	1. Wasted Potential

Kosuke Nakahara was what a lot of people could call "wasted potential." Though that might have been too harsh.

Kosuke had some talents. She was a good photographer, she knew that for a fact—no shame in taking pride in one's skills. Her report cards were regularly good, with the occasional less-than-good outlier. She could play the violin, though at the age of seventeen-going-on-eighteen, she hadn't picked one up for little over a year. In her childhood, she'd taken part in many different classes and clubs. She'd taken ballet, art, tap dancing, swimming, soccer, baseball, and a sort of nature-and-hiking commitment that never really had a name to it.

Unfortunately, most of those talents were squandered. Or rusted.

Many teachers took note that though her grades pulled through, her classroom participation was pretty lackluster. At some point in time, she could play many different songs on the violin, from "La Vie en Rose" to "Waltz of the Flowers" and a semi-decent portion of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." Now, if she concentrates, she can do "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

She can still paint in _technicality_ , in that she knows when to swap brushes and mix paints and the differences between acryllic and watercolor, but the last thing she’s created was a paint-by-the-numbers that was supposed to be an Italian harbor but instead looked like rainbow vomit.

She never really forgot how to cook, but she's never pushed herself beyond the basics—spaghetti, rice, noodles, stuff like that. She could burn steaks to charred bricks. And despite her high metabolism, a constant diet of soda, cookies, and chips pretty much meant her veins were filled with 50% sugar, 40% salt, and 10% actual blood, so most of her freetime consisted of sitting immobile on her bed, watching movies or sleeping the day away.

Somewhere in her junior high year, Kosuke had become undoubtedly lazy.

Which is why she’s in the situation that she’s in now.

"Uuuuggggghhhh..."

Okina drives the toe of her sneaker into Kosuke's side, but it's useless. Kosuke remains on the ground, arms splayed out, face against the ground. Somewhere, she can hear the other students, shouting across the field, footsteps stampeding down the track. Okina's voice is crystal clear.

"What’s wrong with you?" she almost demands. "Were you a slug in some other life?"

Kosuke replies, "Maybe."

"You're worrying me."

"Thanks."

Okina growls in frustration, and Kosuke knows that she's kind of pushing Okina's buttons here. Okina _hates_ physical education. With a burning passion, despite her otherwise wholesome outlook on life. Nevermind having to ditch her tutus and leggings for baggy shorts and T-shirts. It's the only class where she's constantly sweating and moving, so her carefully-applied makeup and perfectly-tied hair are all damaged with every passing second. She'll spend most of her time in the locker room reapplying blush and blowdrying her hair while the other girls are still showering.

"A toddler could do this," she snaps. She tries to roll Kosuke over, but it's kind of like getting a beached whale to do so. "Are you a toddler, Kosuke?"

"I wish," Kosuke groans. "Then I wouldn't have to do this. I could just take a nap, or something."

"Oh, for goodness—Kohta! Please help me!"

Hearing her boyfriend's name being called out does admittedly cause Kosuke some embarrassment, but not enough to pull herself together. Turning her head and looking through her sweat-soaked red bangs, she sees him running over. He's been working hard enough for sweat to break and his shirt to uncomfortably cling to his skin (not that Kosuke is complaining). His hair, which was neither brown nor black, was soft at the top and wet at the ends.

Once he's there, he's close enough for Kosuke to see the little bits of hazel in his emerald green eyes. If she had enough energy, she'd reach up hug him, or just run her fingers through her hair, as always. But her arms and legs feel as if they're stuck to the ground beneath her.

"What's wrong?" asks Kohta. "She's not having a heat stroke, is she?"

"No," sighs Okina. She jabs a French-manicured nail at the finish line. "She just won't run the track!"

Kohta sighs, too, but his is more of relief than annoyance. He brushes Kosuke's hair away from her face, and though Kosuke would be very content to just lie there and let him keep doing that, he lifts her chin to make her look at him.

"It's just a few more steps," he tells her. "Then you're home free."

Okina cuts in with, "No, Kohta, she hasn't run at _all_. She literally walked the fifteen steps out of the locker rooms and collapsed."

Kohta looked at their teacher in question, and gets a nod in response. This time, when Kohta sighs, it's in disappointment. His green eyes harden on her a bit.

"Kosuke, we're only a few weeks away from graduation. Please tell me you're not going to get held back just because you won't run a little bit."

"It's not that I won't," Kosuke replies. She's aware she sounds like a four-year-old. "It's that I _can't_."

"Here we go again." Kohta sits down and props his elbow on his knee, chin in his hand. Behind him, Okina removes a handkerchief from her pocket and dabs away the sweat from her brow. "What have you been eating?"

Kosuke blows a raspberry. "Chips, cookies, licorice, crackers, chocolate..."

"In the last hour, I mean."

"Chips, cookies, licorice, crackers, chocolate...Candy Juice..."

"'Candy Juice'?" Okina asks as she tucks the handkerchief away again. "What’s 'Candy Juice'?"

"It's a new kind of soda she likes," replies Kohta. He's staring down at his girlfriend the way a mother would stare down at her tantrum-throwing child. "There's at least one cup of sugar per can. How many did you drink?"

"One."

"In the past twenty-four hours."

"Only God knows."

Okina stares up at the sky as if asking Him to come down and slap some sense into her friend. Kohta just takes a deep, deep breath, then pushes himself up to his feet. "Okay, you're going to the nurse."

Kosuke wriggles her fingers at him. "Carry me."

Kohta does not look happy about it at all, but he does bend down to her. Hooking one arm under her legs, and the other under her back, he lifts her up with only a short grunt. He’s always been very fit. He's already walking, but he still calls out over his shoulder, "Sensei, may we take Kosuke to the nurse?"

"Fine," she calls back. "But Kosuke, this is your last visit, I swear! I'm giving you a 'D' after this. Okina, you stay here!"

Kosuke can't see Okina since her face is turned towards Kohta's chest, but she hears a length of silence, followed by their teacher feebly calling, "Okay, go ahead." No doubt her friend’s puppy-dog eyes have done wonders yet again.

The inside of the school is heavenly cool, so much that the sweat on Kosuke's skin kind of freezes, and she shivers. Kohta is plenty warm, though, even if his fingers kind of stick uncomfortably on her arm.

"So," says Kohta as they walk, "Where was it you were going to, Okina?"

"Seneca," she replies. When she walks forward a little bit, Kosuke sees that she's undoing her up-do just to tie it up again. "I'm practically going there for free. Only for two years, though. After that, Paris."

"What do you need to go to Paris for?"

The look Okina gives him is not angry, just a little offended. "France is where ballet was invented! I mean, after Italy, anyway. If I had the money, I'd be running there within the month. But it's fine. I just have to save up for the dorm and tuition and then I'm out of here."

"That makes sense," says Kohta. Sarcasm is dripping from his words. "Save up thousands of dollars for something that you could get here for ten times cheaper."

Okina tries to glower at him, but it’s really just an adorable pout. “I don’t need your blessing, thank you.”

"So you two will be going to school together, right? Kosuke?" Kohta looks down at her with his head still throbbing. "Kosu...Did you actually fall asleep?"

He and Okina both sigh at the sight: Kosuke, head turned into Kohta's chest, softly breathing, totally limp. She even has a little bubble swelling and deflating from her nose. He could've been gentle about it, but since this was far from the first time he's had to carry her to the nurse's office, Kohta just tosses her up like a sheet of pizza dough.

Kosuke lets out a strangled scream, like a startled animal, and latches her hands wherever they can grab. She tries to glare at her boyfriend, but heavy with sleep, it looks more like she’s intoxicated. "Whaaaat?"

" _Yes_ , she's going to Seneca, too." Okina leans over Kohta so that Kosuke can see her glare better. "She would be going for free, too, if she actually applied to the scholarships."

Kohta frowned. "We spent a whole afternoon working on those?"

"We did," says Kosuke. She looks like she wants to fall asleep again, but she refrains. "But they couldn't read my handwriting, so they sent all the papers back and...Yeah. I just didn't do them again."

Okina turns her eyes on Kohta. "I’m not the only one very concerned, right?"

"Nope," he sighs. His eyes kind of soften when Kosuke presses her fingers to her lips, kisses them, then presses them to his cheek.

* * *

"You can't keep doing this."

"Hi, Mom. Nice to see you, too. You look heavenly."

Emiko takes a deep breath. The hands kneading the dough in front of her stop. When her gaze goes to her daughter, her usually bluish-gray eyes look stormy black. She would have looked absolutely chilling if it wasn't for the flour stained on her face. Actually, no. She’s chilling.

"Don't you 'Hi, Mom' me," she snaps.

Kosuke sends an uneasy look at the stairs. They're pretty close; close enough for her to run for if she needs to.

"Did I not wipe the counters good enough?" she asks timidly. "In all honesty, I can't get that red stain off with bleach, and I don't think it's jam."

The oven dings, and Emiko gives her another icy look as she stuffs her hand into an oven mitt. Once she pulls the tray of rolls out, a sweet, warm aroma fills the air. Kosuke's stomach rumbles, especially when her mother dips a brush in a cup and starts slathering butter on the pastries. But she's not going to risk it—heaven knows Emiko would kill her. At the least, bite her arm off.

"The school called today," Emiko continues. "Said you were _once again_ in the nurse's office because of high blood sugar and low everything else."

"In my defense, if you can tell that a student is a few seconds away from collapsing, you shouldn't make her run the track."

"Yes, Kosuke." The rolls go back in the oven, and Emiko pins Kosuke down with another look. "You deserve special treatment for not working as hard as everyone else. You realize you're an adult now, right? You can't just lie on your back and ask for rewards. That's not how the world works."

"I'm an adult, but you won't let me get a job?"

"You can't get a job _here_ because if you aren't stuffing your face full of the stuff we need to sell, you're taking two hours to clean a table. You can get a job anywhere else, but you won't, because that's just who you are. You don't try at anything."

"I’m trying with photography!"

"Which you're not making money off of, anyway, and when are you going to decide that it’s boring, too? You’ve done the same with literally every other hobby you’ve pursued."

"I like to think it gave me a wide range of skills."

"You know what? Go talk to your father. I'm not having this conversation while I'm icing cupcakes."

Emiko snatches up a pastry bag full of chocolate frosting and storms away. Kosuke sighs and leaves for the other kitchen. _After_ she grabs a strawberry from the bin.

The Lily Bowl has two floors—the first for the actual restaurant, the second for the Nakaharas' home. The restaurant also has two kitchens in technicality. One for pastries and sweets and whatever else, the other for meals and other non-dessert delicacies. It is in the latter one that Kosuke finds her stepfather, Marti, carving up a chicken.

Marti is the opposite of his wife in many ways. She is gifted in sweet, he in savory. Emiko has the temper of a Tasmanian devil, Marti is almost always as cool as a cucumber.

Their appearances hold even more differences. Emiko's eyes are a stormy blue, Marti's are chocolate brown. Emiko's hair is almost white, it is so blonde; Marti's changes from brown to black depending on the light. Emiko is not snowy, but she is pale, and Marti's skin is caramel. Emiko is almost smaller than her oldest daughter, while Marti still has good muscle for a man his age. Even their hair is different. Emiko's has always been neat and flawless, while Marti's shoulder-length waves are always untidy, the same as his goatee.

Coming to her stepfather, Kosuke has no fear. In fact, the momentary smile he gives her eases her nerves a bit. The chicken he's carving smells heavenly, but Kosuke isn't going to try to nibble at it. Sure, she's a ravenous pit, but she won't swipe off another person's plate.

"Hello," Marti greets her as she walks in. She sits down on a lone stool, and he says, "I'm assuming your mother sent you in?"

"You assume correctly," Kosuke sighs.

Marti sets the chicken on a plate, then goes for the roasted potatoes. "What happened today? Sugar coma? Loss of bodily function?"

Kosuke shakes her head. "I couldn't finish phys-ed."

Marti lets out a short sigh, but that's about it. Once he's done shoveling potatoes, he sprinkles a bit more spice onto the chicken and _wow_ Kosuke is really hungry right now.

"Kosuke, I want to ask you something, and I want you to be honest."

"Okay?"

"Do you feel good right now?"

"I'm not proud of myself, no."

"No, sweetheart, I mean physically. Do you feel okay?"

While Marti goes to the front with the plate in hand, Kosuke thinks about it. She can move her limbs. She doesn't have a headache. She's hungry.

"Yes," she says.

Marti, unconvinced: "Really?"

"Yes!"

"Okay. See that tray?"

He points behind her. There's a tray with just a few unwashed dishes and silverware behind her. Not that there's really anything that can deter Kosuke's appetite, but admittedly, the leftover crumbs and grease and whatnot looks pretty gross.

"Yeah," she says.

"Can you pick it up?"

Kosuke gives him a look, but he meets it easily. "Yes, I can pick it up!"

"Okay. Do it."

Kosuke looks back at the tray and tries to think about how heavy it probably is. Sweat breaks out over her skin.

Thankfully, Marti rounds the table and picks it up himself. He carries it to one of the washing machines, but once it's there, he points to it and tells Kosuke, "Take care of this."

It's a gentle command, and Kosuke takes it. While she's walking, another order comes from the front, and Marti immediately goes to the grill. Kosuke is busy pulling clean plates out and stacking them on the rack, but she can feel her stepfather sending looks her way. (And the other two cooks and the waiters, who know how horrifyingly she does dishes.)

"I suppose I should be angry," he says at last. "Grounding and lecturing and whatnot, but I'll be honest: I'm just concerned."

It honestly hurts just a little more than her mother's words, but Kosuke keeps her eyes trained on the plates in her hands. "You shouldn't be."

"I disagree." Kosuke can hear something sizzling. "You're two weeks from graduation and you can't do more than two minutes of physical labor without collapsing. It doesn't bode well for your adult life. Which has technically already begun."

Kosuke shook off a glob of uneaten cheese into the trash and stuffed the plate into the dishwasher. When she looked back at Marti, he was intent on his work, watching cheese and bread pop and sizzle. Another order was called, and he went to retrieve it. The evening rush was winding down, but they still had a busy night to go.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not going to be doing anything physically demanding anytime soon. This is the beauty of photography! You take pictures of stuff that makes you feel good, and you don't even have to break a sweat over it."

"Fair enough," he sighs. He flips the sandwich on the grill, then adds, "But counterpoint: Just because you don't have to do anything 'physically demanding' doesn't mean you don't have to worry about your health. And photographers aren't exactly in high demand; that's why we want you taking over the restaurant when you can."

"Doesn't it kind of bother you guys that you want me to be more... _more_ , but you also want me to take over a business the second I'm out of college?"

"Every single day, my dear. Every single day." When Kosuke does not respond, he continues, "It's not that we're disappointed, it's that we're _worried_."

"But you shouldn't be worried," Kosuke counters.

Emiko's head appears in the doorway, glaring daggers at her daughter. When Kosuke meets the stare without too much effort, Emiko's pink lips pull together, ruining it all into a pout. She always lost the effect when she tried to twist her mouth.

"That's easy for you to say," she snaps, "when you're not spending thousands of dollars to your education!"

Kosuke doesn't get to respond to this, because Marti shoves a plate with a fresh grilled cheese sandwich under her nose, bats his eyelashes, and practically sings, "Number 14, please~!"

Emiko's nose wrinkles unhappily, but nevertheless, she takes the plate and disappears back into the other kitchen. Marti picks up the next order on his was back inside.

"You are who you are," he continues. "But just as a warning: you can't expect to run on favors."

Kosuke puts in the last fork, then turns her eyes on him. She's hoping her glare hides the shameful fact that her back hurts despite the very, very minimal work she's just completed. "Who said I was?"

"Certainly not me," Marti replies, because he always becomes very confusing at some point during these conversations. "I'm honestly not that angry with you, especially considering this is nothing new. But I think your mother wants to finish this conversation later. So just keep your ears open, okay?"

That's as close to a dismissal as he would ever get. Kosuke leaves the kitchen then— _after_ she grabs a carrot slice from the bin—and carefully avoids her mother on the way upstairs.

The second floor has five rooms—a bedroom for Marti and Emiko, one for Kosuke, one for Minami and Hitsuji, and two bathrooms. This is essentially the reason why the Nakaharas never have company over. They have no living room or family room or whatever you want to call it, unless they want their company sitting at the wooden tables of the restaurant room.

Kosuke's room is the first door off the stairs, and once she opens the door, Kosuke is once again hit with the shameful yet ineffective realization that she really lives in a pig sty. Her room is already kind of small, and with her dresser, bed, and desk, there’s only one spot on the floor where a person could lie down without touching anything. But Kosuke will admit that keeping the place looking like a washed-up rockstar's decrepit apartment doesn't exactly help. The bed is never made up, the drawers never close all the way, and the garbage can is so full of chip bags, candy wrappers, and soda cans that some have to rest on the desk. She also neglects to do much dusting of the place, and her hamper is full of unwashed clothes, as always.

It's an improvement, though. It isn’t like last year, when she had a trail of ants running through the window every other week.

Kosuke almost feels a physical line pulling her to the bed, but the second her knees touch the mattress, her phone rings.

_From: <3 Kohta <3_

_We're all going to hang out in town. Do you wanna come?_

Honestly, she doesn't, because the thought of walking around town for the next few hours already makes her bones feel tired. At the same time, she knows from experience that lying down and doing _nothing_ for the next few hours will make her feel worse, so Kosuke responds with a simple "Sure." On her way out, she runs her fingers along the bedsheets and gives a whispered, "Soon, my love..."

Once she's out the door, Kosuke takes a moment to glance into Minami's room. Her younger sister is nowhere to be found, in her bed or at her desk or on the floor. Kosuke doesn't think much of it, assuming that she's outside somewhere. In contrast, Hitsuji is in his bed. Despite the “bumpers” on either side of the mattress, he’s still as stone except for his rising and falling chest. Kosuke tiptoes over and pulls his blanket just so over his middle. He makes a sleepy coo in response, but doesn’t wake, and oh, if Kosuke’s heart doesn’t just melt at how adorable her little brother is. With one last look, she continues down.

A few more customers have left since she went upstairs. Maybe seven people remain, but Kosuke's parents are still bustling about. Kosuke passes by one of the waiters, Suzu or something, as she goes behind the counter.

"Kohta and Okina want to hang out," she says. "Can I go?"

Emiko turns to her so fast, Kosuke won't be surprised if she suffers whiplash. She also won't be surprised if Emiko throws the apple tart in her hand straight at Kosuke's head.

"You're grounded," she cries, almost in confusion. "What do you think?"

"Yes?"

"No!"

"I haven't gone out with everyone for months!"

"That is _your_ fault."

Years of practice always pay off. Tears come to Kosuke's eyes in an instant, her lip wobbling pathetically. "I may not be able to see any of them after graduation..."

That gets her an apple slice to the face. "No."

Before Kosuke can retort, a little voice cries out, "Is Kosuke going out?"

Kosuke knows the voice belongs to Minami, but neither her nor her mother can spot her. Which is very odd, because the kitchen is really not that big.

"No," Emiko replies, but her voice is more confused than stern. "Where are you?"

"Up here."

Emiko and Kosuke look up and start. Minami has somehow crawled ask the way up one of the freezers, and now her head is about five inches away from the ceiling. Her wild brown curls are so long that they spill over the top of the freezer.

"I want to go!" she sings.

"The only place you're going is down here," snaps Emiko. "Come on!"

Minami huffs, but complies. She twists around until her legs dangle in the air, then just drops. Kosuke knew that she would stick the landing, but she still reaches out to put her hands on her sister's hips.

"What were you doing up there?" asks Emiko.

"I was bored," says Minami. She's very nonchalant about it. "My bicycle's tire popped."

"So you're cooped up in here?" Kosuke asks. When Minami nods, Kosuke sighs in despair and pulls her closer. "Alas! The young one has nowhere to go but the quiet confines of her home! If only she could venture outdoors with a trusted chaperone. An older sister, mayhaps."

Emiko's eyes are as cold as an Antarctic winter. _"No."_

Minami tugs on her sister's shirt. Big brown eyes blink up at Kosuke. "Why can't we go?"

"Mom is imprisoning us," Kosuke sighs in response.

Marti's head peeks in through the doorway. "What's this about prison?"

Minami is quick to explain, "Mommy's imprisoning us." Then she tugs on Kosuke's shirt again. "What does 'imprisoning' mean?"

Emiko turns to her husband with crossed arms and pinched lips. "Kosuke wants to go out with Kohta and her friends, even though she's grounded."

"I want to go, too!" Minami cuts in.

Marti sighs and sets an order on the counter. While Suzu swipes it up and walks away, he looks between his daughters. "Grounded does mean grounded. We can't keep making exceptions."

"You said I'm good, like, next week?" At Marti's nod, Kosuke continues, "That's only five days!"

"Exactly," Emiko snips. She's trying to keep her voice stern, but Kosuke can tell she's smug about winning. "You can wait it out."

Kosuke looks between her parents—Emiko hard and glaring, Marti soft and shrugging. She has lost the battle, it seems. So it's time for the secret weapon.

"Alright, Minami." She kneels down and runs a hand through her sister's curls. "Looks like we're stuck here." When Minami starts to whine, Kosuke hushes her. "It's okay! There's other stuff we can do! What’s that new song you came up with?”

Emiko and Marti's eyes go wide with horror, but Minami's light up like fireworks. "‘The Scream Song!’ We can sing it together!"

* * *

When Kohta said "we", Kosuke had assumed he just meant him and Okina. Instead, when Kosuke and Minami arrive at Ginza Street, she sees that it's Kohta, Jet, Tomoko, and Okina awaiting them. Jet has crawled up a lamppost, because of course he has, while Tomoko is clicking away at a NintendoDS.

Kohta waves Kosuke over, but when he sees Minami, he pauses. "What's she doing here?"

There's really no polite way to ask it. Minami steps behind Kosuke. Kohta had only been over to her house about six times, all short. Minami did not dislike Kohta, neither did she like him. He’s just a stranger to her, nothing more or less, but that would change in time. Kosuke squeezes her sister's hand.

"I needed an escort," Kosuke jokes. "She'll keep me out of trouble, I promise."

Okina snorts softly as she walks to Kosuke. While she fixes her collar and tidies her red hair, she tells her friend, "I'm going to be very disappointed if a child does a better job of motivating you than me."

Okina goes to Minami and immediately swoops her into her arms. Minami doesn't mind at all, and does not notice when Jet lands next to Kohta from a seven-foot fall and mumbles, "We're seriously going up babysit? This isn't what I came here for."

"You weren't even invited," Kohta snaps at him.

Kosuke doesn't want to start anything, so she just promises, "She's sweet. Won't be a problem."

Jet stuffs his hands into his pockets. "Hope not. I need a damn break from school."

A shoe collides with the back of his head, making him yelp. Kosuke stomps over, picks her shoe back up, and growls _, "Don't curse in front of her. "_

* * *

Their evening goes about as normally as Kosuke could have hoped. She and the others hop from store to store, sometimes making purchases, other times just trying to prevent Jet from breaking something expensive. Kosuke takes many pictures, some of the others, most of the sunset sky and the store signs that light up one by one as it slowly gets darker and darker.

Minami sticks with Okina and Kosuke for the most part. Kosuke can't really blame her—the others are basically strangers to her—but there is definitely something awkward in that her younger sister doesn't talk to her boyfriend much at all. Still, she doesn’t seem to _dislike_ him, so that’s something. Once, Kosuke had kinda-sorta gone out with another boy from her class. It didn't last long at all, which was good, because the one time that the guy met Minami, she'd very nearly gotten away with putting silica in his food.

It's a calm and enjoyable night, but it's weighed down by the feeling that something is wrong with Kohta.

He stills walks beside her, still takes her hand, still smiles at her when she smiles at him. Yet, Kosuke has a sinking feeling every time she looks his way. His eyes don't sparkle like they usually do. His smiles don't feel real at all. He almost seems to be squirming on the spot at every second, but Kosuke cannot for the life of her tell why.

They all decide on one last endeavor for the night and walk to the nearest available nature path. Karuizawa is full of them, for good reason. The forests are beautiful, especially those closer to the mountain, and walking through them is always a serene experience. The wooden walkway is dotted with electric lanterns, but their light is dull.

The real light comes from the fireflies that flicker on and off all around them. Minami is instantly over the moon, of course, and absolutely begs Kosuke for her cup. Kosuke pours the rest of her soda into a water fountain, gives the clear plastic cup to her sister, and watches as she drags Okina into the hunt.

"She's sweet," Kohta says beside her.

"As sugar," Kosuke agrees.

She realizes that they are alone for the first time of the night. The others are a good distance ahead. Tomoko is swatting the fireflies away, Jet is trying to squash one in his palm, and Okina and Minami have successfully caught two already. Even though Kosuke can hear their laughter and yelling, she wraps her arm around Kohta's and leans into his shoulder.

She lives for moments like these, where everything else seems to just disappear and it's just the two of them.

"You know I'm going to Oshimi, right?"

"Yes?" she replies, but she has no idea why he's bringing this up.

Kohta isn't walking so fast anymore. In fact, they are very close to not moving at all.

Kosuke takes her head off his shoulder and looks up at him. Kohta is looking down at his shoes with a pensive expression. His jaw is set in a way that she is very familiar with. He's upset about something and isn't talking about it. Which—even though Kosuke loves him, let it not be said she doesn't—is very Kohta of him.

"We're not going to be seeing each other much anymore," he mumbles.

Kohta's arm feels very stiff in hers now, so Kosuke lets go of it. She does not reach for his hand, but does not step away, either. Instead, they stroll side-by-side, never touching save for the occasional brushes of their arms against one another.

"We've talked about this," Kosuke reminds him. "We'll text every day. We'll see each other over breaks. I'll send pictures, and you can send me lyrics you're working on. Or food. I'll take food, too. But I want at least one song waxing poetry about my eyes or some other cheesy thing."

She's trying to joke with him, but it does nothing. Kohta still isn't looking at her. He only raises his eyes when she stops right in front of him.

"If something's wrong, you have to tell me." She reaches for his hand. Her touch is light, barely holding onto his fingers, but she doesn't take her eyes off of him. "I told you—I can't fix the problem if I don't know what it is."

"The problem..." Kohta takes a breath. His fingers twitch over hers. "The problem is that I don't know if that'll actually work."

"Kohta, I get it. I need to remember not to keep my phone on silent because you might really need to talk to me. I know. Trust me, I got enough of that talk from my mom the time that I ended up stuck in halfway across the country—"

"That's not what I meant."

"If you're too busy to come down here, I can go up there." She winks at him. "As long as you promise not to introduce me to your new girlfriend, huh?"

Kohta does not smile back at her. "That's not what I meant, either."

"You know I was just joking when I told you to send me food, right? Unless that is not the problem, in which case, I am still joking, but such givings would not go unappreciated—"

"Kosuke, _please_. I'm being serious."

Kosuke's jaw tightens up despite herself. "I know you are, but you have to help me out here. I can't read your mind."

Kohta chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. Her looks her up and down, from the top of her head to her toes, and finally asks, "Point-blank? No beating around the bush?"

"Yes, if you will."

"I don't think you're going to do all that stuff."

It honestly catches her off-guard, and she's stuck staring at him somewhat stupidly for a long moment. Behind her, she can no longer hear the others, and maybe they've gone on without them, but whatever. It's still just her and Kohta and nothing else in the world, but it's not warm anymore. It's cold in the worst, awkward way.

"I can figure out a schedule to come see you, if that's what you mean," she tells him. She sounds a bit too whiny to her own ears, not serious enough, but she can't help it. She's still stuck prodding at him until he gives her something to work with. "I know taking a bus that far is kind of tricky, but if you can do it, then..."

"I mean I don't think you're going to _choose_ to do all that stuff. You're...Listen, you wouldn't finish one essay to a college that could define your future. Would you really text me on-end every day? Is coming more than a hundred miles to see me going to be easier than walking one lap for class?"

It's probably the bluntest he's ever been with her, and it hurts. It's that terrible sting right in the gut that she hasn't felt for a long time, but she's familiar with enough.

Knowing that someone you love expects little from you should always be heartwrenching—but Kosuke hates to admit that she's gotten used to that knowledge in regards to her parents and Okina. It's only gut-twisting now because...She doesn't quite know. Maybe because she knows that her best friend and her parents won't cut her loose because of her shortcomings.

But with Kohta, it's like she was trying to prove something without even realizing it. She doesn’t _want_ Kohta to think that she was lazy and sluggish and uninterested in most things, even though she is.

"I..." She's already talking before she can stop herself. Her thoughts have stopped running, and she sputters without them. "Those things are different, Kohta. I...Look, I know I make dumb choices, and I don't take things as seriously as I should. But I take _you_ seriously. And to answer your question, _yes_ , texting you every day would be easier than writing an essay, and _yes_ , traveling miles to see you would be easier than physical education."

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"How do I know that?"

"Because I hate writing essays and running track, but I love _you_ , so I’ll put an effort into it."

This gives him pause. His eyes soften, his fingers loosen up where they're folded into his elbows. Kosuke doesn't know if it's guilt she sees in his eyes, but she hopes it isn't. She doesn't want him to feel guilty about being honest about his feelings, she just doesn’t like that he has the feelings he’s being honest about.

"I'm not saying you don't," he tells her. "But it feels like us being together _now_ , when we see each other every day, already takes too much energy out of you. So what is it going to be like when—?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean—how many times have I finally gotten away from studying and stuff, but we weren't able to see each other because you'd pretty much put yourself into a sugar coma?"

"I don't know; a couple of times. You've had to cancel on me before, too?"

"Because I was _busy_ , not because I drank too much syrup!"

"Well, I don't want to vomit on your shoes! And I wouldn't do that if I _knew_ I was going to see you. Your schedule is too—" Kohta sighs, and Kosuke shuts her mouth. She tries again. "I'm really, really not trying to turn this around on you. I'm just saying...If I screwed up before, it wasn't because I wasn't taking us seriously, it was because I made dumb choices that affected us later. And I'm sorry that I made those choices. Really."

"I know you are." Kohta swipes his bangs from his face. A firefly drifts past his ear. "I just...How do I know you're going to get better?"

"Because now I know there's a problem, and I can fix it."

"You've been told about problems before. Sleeping in and missing class, turning in papers late, not keeping up in P.E...How is this different?"

"I already told you," Kosuke insists. "Because it's _you_. Kohta, I'm as lazy as they get, I'll always admit to that. But that's just me. I would never _try_ to let you down. I would never care so little that I hurt you.”

Kohta does not say anything to this. Kosuke can't read him at all, can't tell if he's thoughtful or angry or anything else. She wants to reach out to him, to take his hand again, but she doesn't. She just steps closer and wraps her arms around herself.

"Is this why you've been quiet all night?" she asks.

He looks up at her for just a moment. "You noticed."

"You kind of do the potty-dance when you're nervous; no offense." This at least gets a hesitant, quick smile out of him. Kosuke takes the little victory in stride. "Hey, listen..."

She reaches her hands out to him, palms-up. He hesitates for just a second, but it feels much longer to Kosuke before he puts his hands in hers. She pulls them close to her chest. Running her thumbs over his knuckles, she realizes she hasn't done this in quite some time. When was the last? When he was upset that he was not accepted into his first-choice college, or before then?

"I promise," she says. "I _promise_ that I'm going to try for you. I'm really going to make an effort for us. At least give me a chance, okay?"

Kohta's hands twitch in hers. His emerald eyes have gone soft watching her little thumbs run over his knuckles, but when Kosuke gives him another small smile, his lips do not quite give it back. Instead, they purse together, like he's not sure whether to frown or smile. She really wants him to smile, but she doesn't know what else to do.

When he speaks, it's barely above a whisper. "Kosuke..."

"OH THANK GOD!"

Kosuke very nearly screams when an arm comes crashing down on her shoulder. Kohta lets out a strangled yelp as the same happens to him, and soon, they're both squished together against Jet's cologne-heavy hoodie.

"We got to the end and you guys weren't there," Jet breathes. "We thought we lost you."

Behind him, Tomoko rolls her eyes. Regardless, her fingers don't stop moving on her phone. "It would be so nice if you would stop being dramatic for two seconds."

Okina is lagging behind them, courtesy of the half-asleep child slung across her back. Minami's eyes are blinking slower and slower. One arm is dangling limply from Okina's shoulder, the other lazily holding onto the cup in her hands. Six fireflies flicker around inside, and maybe Kosuke should have cleaned the soda from it first, but whatever.

Okina does not look amused when she comes to them. Okina loves Minami like the sister she never had, but she could not ignore that the girl was crushing her against her back.

"Are you guys ready to go?" she asks. "It's the little princess’ bedtime and I'd rather she not miss it."

"Uh..." Kosuke hesitates. She knows that Okina does not understand the weight of the conversation, she hadn't heard any of it, but some irrational part of her is still annoyed that she and Kohta were interrupted. Jet's squawking and Tomoko's phone-clicking were not sounds she wants to hear at the moment. "Yeah, let's head home."

Hearing this, Minami perks up just enough to reach for her sister with both hands. "Carry me..."

Okina moves closer to Kosuke, but it's just a taunt. A powermove. She's already giving Kosuke a knowing, unimpressed glare before the redhead even shakes her head.

"I can't carry you, Minami, you know that," she chuckles in the most awkward way imaginable.

Minami gives a whine of disappointment, but otherwise does not protest. Okina gives her one last "I'm getting to be a better sister than you" look before turning on her heel to continue down the walkway. Tomoko follows shortly.

Jet laughs a great, loud, kind-of-sounds-like-a-duck-quack laugh. He slaps Kosuke on the back, and while it probably wouldn't feel like much to others, it practically knocks the wind out of her. "You're so friggin' weak."

"You can't open a pickle jar and you know it," Kosuke snarks back, but he's already gone, hands clasped behind his head as he saunters after the others.

Looking back at Kohta, she knows he's feeling just as annoyed. He scratches his cheek for a second, then walks forward like it's the only thing he can do. Kosuke falls into step beside him and rests a hand on his shoulder. He hesitates.

"We can talk about this later," she offers. "We can text, or meet up—"

"No, it's fine. I think we're good."

Kosuke can only blink for a second. "We're good?"

"Yeah."

"Really?"

"Really."

Surprise melts into relief. He gives a smile first this time, and however small and unsure it is, she returns it. He doesn't shy away when she wraps her arm around his.

Kosuke knows she can be a little pathetic at times, and she doesn't blame Kohta for his low expectations. But yes, Kosuke will get better, she knows that now. If not in school or work or even photography, then for the two of them. She's a sap. Sue her.

They continue down the walkway and its many fireflies, arm-in-arm, probably not perfect, but okay enough.


	2. No Lights

The Lily Bowl is very quiet when Kosuke returns home with a sleep-tipsy Minami in tow. With the others already on their way home, she's left to basically drag her younger sister by her hand.

They barely make it up the stairs, and once they're in Minami's room, Kosuke knows she's not going to make it much longer. All she can manage is getting Minami to brush her teeth and change into her pajamas. She'll have to get her bath in the morning.

Kosuke tucks her in to bed, something she has not done in a long time but she kind of owes for keeping her up past her bedtime. She plugs in the nightlight, whispers a goodnight, and leaves Minami to sleep.

Sleep sounds very welcome at the moment. But Kosuke doesn't even get to her door, let alone her pajamas.

"Kosuke? Come here."

She hadn't even noticed the lamp on in the room down the hall. Walking in, Kosuke sees with some kind of relief that it's only her stepfather inside. One side of the bed has the sheets turned over, a horror novel on the nightstand, the lamp still on.

From the desk, Marti waves her over. Even though the master bedroom is the largest in the "house", Kosuke can still sit on the end of the bed and be close enough. She can almost touch the wheels of his chair with her toes.

Marti does not immediately say anything. He continues writing on the papers spread out in front of him—little more than bills, from what Kosuke can tell. She kind of felt bad that all the accounting and calculating was on Marti, but it wasn't like she could help him. Besides, after her mother's "What do you mean I ordered two hundred chairs instead of twenty?" mistake that happened the year before, Marti has already proven himself to be a worthy caretaker of their finances.

At long last, Marti clicks his pen and turns around to face her.

"Your mother isn't happy with you," he tells her.

"Is she ever?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

Kosuke honestly isn't trying to push her luck; she's just trying to lighten up the mood before it has the chance to get dark. It's not like she has anything to worry about; it takes a lot—a LOT—to get Marti annoyed, let alone angry.

So he just crosses one leg over the other and folds his hands on his knees. "She's outside."

The two short words are enough. Kosuke feels something terrible twist in her gut. Her mother's been trying very hard to give up smoking. Emiko had never been a heavy smoker; she'd never stained their clothes with the smell of tobacco, never had to go to the doctor about a problem. There were days when she didn't smoke at all, but however occasional it was, she wanted to stop altogether.

This stretch had been the longest one. Around forty days, if Kosuke was right. And now she'd ruined it. She was being so immature that she literally drove her mother to a cigarette—

"It's not you." Kosuke is becoming very convinced, as of late, that Marti can read her mind. "Not totally. We had some tricky customers today. Had a mom completely set her kids on the loose—broke two plates before we had to ask them all to leave."

"Customers usually don't bother Mom all that much, though."

"No, not usually. But we also got a review."

"Oh _no_."

"Oh yeah."

"Ugh. Let me see it."

Marti hands her the newspaper on his desk. It's already turned to the page, the review printed under a name that Kosuke does not recognize. She skims it with her eyes, and almost as if the words are highlighted, she seeks out the things that must have driven her mother to the edge.

_...cozy atmosphere gone to waste in a cramped space..._

_...the "finely toasted croissants" were more along the lines of "completely charred bread socks"..._

_...with one waiter being unable to work due to an unknown family emergency, one wonders if two extra hands truly prevents the snail's-pace service I experienced..._

The review is not entirely negative—the writer liked the other food, praised the cleanliness of the place, the freshness of the ingredients, etc. But the closing sentiment is essentially a warning not to get one's hopes up. Reviews are always tricky in the restaurant business. Kosuke knows with good confidence that her parents take criticism when they can. If the food is not made to par, they try to fix it. If a waiter causes problems, they try to straighten them out

Not all reviews really work to their merit, though. Kosuke knows of three different types of reviews so far: the bizarrely visceral, the pointlessly vague, and the one-bad-day-at-the-restaurant-should-not-measure-its-value.

This one seems to fall mostly in the third category. Kosuke had already found out that a large group of children—probably on a field trip, who knew?—had come to The Lily Bowl for lunch. Kosuke loved her family's restaurant dearly, but it just wasn't yet the place for sudden, large groups.

"Emiko admires that reviewer," Marti sighs. "She's really beating herself up over this one."

"But?"

"... _But_ it would probably help if you let her be for a while."

Kosuke nods, even though she does not at all feel happy about it. She kind of hates how childish she's being—"I'm going to cause a lot of problems, then feel bad for myself when everyone rightfully gets mad at me!"—but it's not like anyone _enjoys_ being ridiculed. It's not something you look forward to.

"For future reference," continues Marti, "don't use your sister as a pawn. It's not moral."

"Yeah...Sorry."

Marti does not say anything for a moment. His eyes flicker over her face searchingly. "Something else is wrong. What is it?"

"Nothing serious."

"If it wasn't serious, you wouldn't look so down."

"It's just...Kohta and I had a talk. About—" Kosuke flaps her hands around. "—the future and everything."

Marti's lips purse as he leans back in his chair. There's pity in his eyes that Kosuke was not expecting.

"We have ice cream downstairs," he offers. "Or I could get one of my old punching bags out, if that's what you need. I'm here for you."

"We didn't break up," Kosuke quickly corrects. "It just gave me some things to think about."

"What kind of things?"

Kosuke looks to the door, as if expecting to see Emiko there. She's not, of course, and Kosuke is kind of relieved. One-on-one talks were never easy for her. Two-on-one talks are nightmares.

"I need to ask you something," she says.

"Go ahead."

"Are you angry with me?"

Marti thinks for a moment. "I'm not happy that you weaseled your way out of your grounding, but I'm not _furious_ —"

"No, I mean just...In general. With how I am."

Kosuke isn't waxing poetry and she knows it. Yet, Marti seems to perfectly understand what she's asking. His posture does not change, his mouth does not immediately open, but something thoughtful and almost sad fills his eyes. A finger taps against his knee. Kosuke can hear the clock ticking.

"Angry isn't the right word," he tells her. "Neither is disappointment. Concerned, I think. Come here."

Marti reaches over the papers. Kosuke groans.

"Please," she begs, "not the bonsai."

"Yes, the bonsai. Now come here and look."

Kosuke rolls her eyes, but does so. She walks all of one foot closer until the edge of the desk is against her hip. In the windowsill above the desk rests her stepfather's beloved bonsai tree. Marti swore on his grave that it was decades old and still growing strong and green. Kosuke was not convinced, but whatever. Let a man have his endeavors.

"This bonsai is over fifty years old."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is, and it didn't get that way on its own. If it wasn't trimmed and wired, it would just look like a little shrub. It takes a lot of care and effort, but it pays off in the end."

"Pays off how?"

"It's a miniature version of a giant tree, Kosuke, have a sense of wonder. The fact is that without making an effort to take care of it, the tree wouldn't be what it is. Now, imagine if... _growths_ started coming out of the tree."

"Growths?"

"Yes. Just weird spuds that are popping up for no reason. I would cut them off, of course, but let's say they keep coming back. So I do everything I can to get rid of them, but no matter what, they come back. The growths are ruining the tree, and all I can do is cut them down and wait for them to come back, because I don't know what else to do. See what I'm getting at with this?"

"I'm an annoying growth?" Marti's glare is very withering. "I'm joking. Yes, I see what you're getting at."

No. No she did not. She never understood any of his bonsai metaphors and she never would, but at the age of thirteen she decided she'd just nod along at his wisdom.

Marti reaches over and picks up the small pair of scissors lying beside the bonsai. He gives them to Kosuke, then points to a little stray stem jutting from the top.

"You are who you are," Marti continues as Kosuke snips away the stem. He points to another. "We just want you to be the best you can be. The world can be scary, honey. We want you to be ready to take it on."

Kosuke snorts as she snips away another stem. "I don't see why. If I ever have a problem, I just have to get my dad to beat it up, right?"

Marti snorts, too. "Yeah, well, your dad can't beat up taxes. Even if he really, really wants to."

Kosuke looks down at the papers. Setting the scissors down, she lifts a paper up. An electricity bill, and even though it's probably reasonable for a small restaurant-home, it still looks like a _lot_ to a jobless high school graduate.

"Eesh," she groans. "Is this what it usually is?"

Marti sighs. "No. They upped something, somewhere. It doesn't really matter; we have to pay it, anyway."

"But we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good." Marti gives her a thumbs-up and a wink. It makes him look very young. "Still going strong."

Kosuke looks down at the papers once again. Only one is handwritten, and she picks it up out of curiosity. The handwriting is little more than chickenscratch, and she can only pick out a few words—"owe", "impatient", "don't be stupid".

The last one gives her pause. That's...not something you would read in a professional letter. "What's this?"

The paper is plucked from her fingers at once. Marti does not look panicked save for his tapping foot. He just folds the paper in half and tucks it into his shirt pocket.

"Dumb personal matters," is the only explanation he gives. "From a sorta-kinda-not-really-friend."

"They sound...gruff."

"They are." Marti lifts a leg and taps his foot against her butt. "Now go on. Your mother will be here any second now."

"Alright." Kosuke taps him on the forehead and heads for the door. "'Night."

"Good night. Hey, by the way…" Marti nods at a cardboard box at the foot of the bed. "Those are some of our old clothes we're getting rid of. Go through them to see if you want any. Love you."

Kosuke picks up the box and grunts, "Love you, too."

She's only halfway to the door when she hears footsteps coming from the stairs. Kosuke absolutely dives for her bedroom door, almost falling on her face in her haste to lock it shut behind her. The box goes clunking to the floor.

She stays there a moment, listening to the footsteps as they pass by. A door opens and closes. She can just barely hear her parents' voices, the words no more than warbles. Her mother sounds tired more than anything.

Kosuke only stays up a little while longer. She changes into her pajamas, creeps to the bathroom unnoticed, and plays around on her phone for a bit before calling it a night. It's kind of sad that she's done very little all day and she's still exhausted. Oh, well.

Sleep does not come easily, however. She ends up tossing in her bed over and over, fixing her pillows, even plays some relaxing music on her phone. Yet awake she remains.

Her and Kohta's conversation keeps coming to her mind. How disappointed and tired he looked with her. The way he almost cringed every time she said anything. He'd said they were okay, but now Kosuke was not so sure. She wouldn't put it past him to say that just for the sake of getting out of the conversation.

Her mother isn't giving her peace of mind, either. Kosuke really, truly did not intentionally push her mother to the end of her rope. Her mother was always hardheaded and fiery about everything, from cooking to her family to just getting groceries from the store. So Kosuke honestly couldn't tell when to take her mother's annoyance seriously or not. This time, however, she knows it's the former.

She doesn't know which makes her feel worse:

Knowing that she has disappointed people she loves.

The fact that she's gone through this guilt before.

The doorknob twists. Kosuke almost closes her eyes, just open enough to see who it is and still look asleep.

Emiko stands immobile in the doorway for a moment. Kosuke cannot see her face from the bed. All she can make out is her mother's nightgown, her bare feet, her short blonde hair mussed around her head.

Leaving the door open, Emiko walks closer and closer. Kosuke doesn't know what to do—should she admit that she was fake-sleeping for no reason, or...?

Her mother stops beside her bed, pauses, and sits down on the floor. Her back rests against the mattress. In the moonlight, and through her fluttering eyelashes, Kosuke still cannot see her despite her being a mere arm's length away. Her face is turned in her direction. Her hair looks silver.

Something brushes against Kosuke's cheek, and she almost jumps.

Emiko brushes a lock of red hair from her daughter's face, then just lightly runs her fingertips through the rest. She never says a word. At some point, she pulls her hand back and looks away, but remains seated at Kosuke's bedside.

Sleep has finally started to get its hold of her, warping Kosuke's senses. Her thoughts are incoherent to herself, because even though she kind of feels awkward and confused and concerned and loved all at once, she (for some reason) finds herself looking at the wrinkles on her mother's face. In daylight, they are almost unnoticeable. In moonlight, they are stark gray.

She's going somewhere with this. 'She's lived a long life,' or something similar, comes into her head. But then she's asleep, and when she wakes up to warm yellow sunlight, her mother—of course—is gone.

* * *

Graduation comes and goes with much (but fast) fanfare. Before Kosuke can even comprehend it, she's done with high school. Everyone else seems to be bursting with joy and sadness, but she's just kind of relieved more than anything. Neither she nor Okina cry at the ceremony—though for Okina, it seemed to be because of pure refusal not to make her mascara run. There are hugs and kisses and final goodbyes, and then that's it.

The first week of her vacation passes at a snail's pace. Besides occasionally hanging out with Okina, Kosuke does not do much at all besides sleep and eat. Which, okay, she did that before she graduated, but now it feels kind of disappointing. Kind of like she's stuck on a bus stop, waiting for the next big part of life to come even though she just got out of one. This next part would begin at Seneca, just a month away and having already bitten a huge chunk out of her family's money.

So. A week after graduation. Nothing has happened. Kosuke is sleeping. What a happy ending.

"Kosuke. Kosuke!"

Kosuke stirs and groans at the voice. Her stepfather is leaning over her bed, brows furrowed. He's wearing a button-up shirt and slacks, not the T-shirt and jeans he usually wears around the restaurant. His hair is combed neatly, very handsome.

Her voice is thick and scratchy in her throat. "Yeah?"

"I thought you already woke up. I saw you go into the bathroom this morning."

"Yeah...I think I was going to go out to the store, but...Bed..."

"Ignoring that it's about one in the afternoon now," sighs Marti, "your mother and I are headed out. Emergency business meeting. The restaurant is closed up, so just...Try and eat something?"

"I will do so with great enthusiasm." Kosuke lets out a long, catlike yawn. "Later."

"Don't I know it. We'll pick up Minami from her party on our way back, but keep an eye on Hitsuji, alright?"

As if summoned, her little brother all but flies into view and throws himself against his father's legs. Marti doesn't even flinch as Hitsuji dances atop his feet, saying, "Rocket ship! Rocket ship!"

"Just a second, astronaut." Marti looks down at the box tucked away in the corner, almost out of sight. "Did you go through the clothes yet?"

"Yeah. Didn't see anything I wanted."

"Nothing?" Marti reaches over and grabs the first thing stuffed into the box—a brown bomber jacket, lined in sheepskin. He holds it over his chest, and even though the initials on the right sleeve mark it as his, it can't possibly stretch over his wide shoulders. "Not even my old bomber?"

"No offense, Dad, but it's kind of outdated. And it smells like paprika."

"There's a story behind that, but I'll tell you that later, even though you have no sense of fashion." Marti folds the bomber back up and tosses it back into the box. Hitsuji is waving his arms at him and whining almost in a panic. "We're off. Love you."

"Love you, too," Kosuke mumbles.

Marti finally wraps his arms around Hitsuji's middle and lifts him up, slowly, muttering a robotic countdown beneath his breath. Hitsuji is giggling like it's just the absolute best thing in the world, and when Marti says _"Activating asteroid shield…breaking through the stratosphere…Kissing Mama goodbye…"_ Hitsuji plants a kiss against Emiko's cheek. Emiko smiles after him and waves as the "Hitsuji Rocket" flies away with a throaty rumble from Marti.

Watching them go, Kosuke only then realizes that her mother is still standing in the doorway. She'd been doing so the whole time, but she lingers now. She's buttoning up her blouse without even looking at her fingers.

"Love you," she says.

Emiko...doesn't say goodbye like this. Almost ever. She'd said it before, of course—she was her _mother_ , of course she'd been told she was loved a thousand times over—but never as a farewell. It catches Kosuke off-guard, and after she says it, Emiko hesitates like she's pondering it herself.

"Love you too," Kosuke says back. It is not at all insincere, but it comes out more like a question.

Emiko and Marti leave.

Kosuke finally pulls herself out of bed, gets dressed at least semi-decently, and brushes her hair. She has no plans for the day, but she has to watch Hitsuji while they're gone.

She makes her way downstairs. Hitsuji is in the hall, setting up a game Marti had bought him a while ago. It was something where you set up some tiny cardboard figurines of cowboy robbers and flicked a little wooden ball at them as the "sheriff". When she comes down, he flicks the ball at her, and even though it doesn't even hit her, she makes a show of bleeding out and dying on the stairs. Hitsuji just continues with his game after that, completely unfazed by murdering his own sister, and well, Kosuke can't bash his commitment.

The front windows of the restaurant have the shutters pulled down, the door locked. It was always kind of weird seeing the restaurant empty during the daytime, but it isn't a sight she'd never seen before. It's very quiet in the building, save for Hitsuji playing with his game and birdsong outside.

The kitchen is sparkling clean, everything in place save for a large bowl in the middle of the table. There's a little sticky note attached to it.

_Kosuke,_

_Eat._

_Mom &Dad_

Well, Kosuke doesn't have to be told twice. Peeling the tinfoil off the top of the bowl, she sees that it's filled with fried rice tossed with carrots, broccoli, and peas, God bless her parents' souls. Kosuke does not doubt that she would be capable of eating the bowl by herself, let alone with her little brother, but sitting almost alone in an empty restaurant's kitchen sounds...sad.

She pulls her phone out and goes to the most recent caller.

 _"What's up?"_ Okina asks on the first ring, right to the point.

"Do you want to come over?"

_"I'm practicing my pirouettes. My teacher said they're off and I'll have to do this all day just to get it right."_

"Mom and Dad left food."

_"I'll be there in ten minutes. But I swear, if I get there and you just need me to get you a drink because you're too lazy to get out of bed, I'm not going to be your friend anymore."_

"Cool. See you in ten."

_"See you."_

Okina does come ten minutes later. Even her most casual clothes have some elegance to them, Kosuke muses to herself. Okina hasn't been outside the house all day and she's still wearing a pearl necklace and pretty pink flats.

Kosuke dumps a third of the rice onto one plate, a third onto the other, a half of the last third onto _another,_ heats them up in the microwave and maybe too quickly slides a plate over to Okina. Kosuke digs out a spoon from a drawer. Okina eats hers with chopsticks like a normal person.

"How's life?" Kosuke asks through a mouthful of rice. She turns her head and calls, _"Hitsuji! Come eat your lunch!"_

Okina looks very old in a short moment, but nevertheless replies, "I don't know how much more I can take, Kosuke. You know ballet is my life, but if my college professor is half as strict as Madame Reaux is, I think I'm going to crack the first time she tells me to lift my leg higher."

"So," Kosuke says while Hitsuji practically crashes into his seat. "Will you quit?"

" _No,"_ Okina snaps back. Beside her, Hitsuji parrots her again and again, 'No, no, no,' and she goes on a bit softer. "I will have a mental breakdown before I quit ballet. I've spent far too much time with it to drop it now."

Isn't that the truth. Okina had been dancing to _"Pas de Deux"_ since the second she was born, it seemed. Kosuke cannot remember a single day where Okina hasn't danced, or at the very least _talked_ about ballet. Though she admires her commitment, and knows that Okina is a beautiful dancer, Kosuke can't imagine a life like hers. Always performing, always perfecting upon perfection, always being yelled at while her toes ached and her back went stiff…Then again, she isn't Okina, so maybe it isn't half that bad.

"Have you talked to that Ikuto guy yet?" Kosuke asks.

Okina twiddles with a piece of carrot and doesn't respond save for the lightest of pinks taking over her already-blushed cheeks. Hitsuji, none the wiser, loudly and curiously asked, "Who's Ikuto? Hey, Kobuay, who's Ikuto?"

" _Koh-SOO-KAAAY._ Ikuto's a boy Okina likes, but she won't admit to it."

Hitsuji just about instantly loses interest in the conversation, but Okina swells up like a balloon. "You say that like I've been pining for him forever!"

"Haven't you?"

"No! He's just a guy in my class that I think is a little cute. That's it."

"If 'that's it', why haven't you talked to him yet?"

"You know, not everyone is as flirty as you."

"I am not _flirty._ I've been dating the same guy for two years, what are you even talking about?"

"Yeah, but when _you_ realized you liked Kohta, you just went for it. No fear, no hesitation. I can't even think about just walking up to Ikuto and laying it on thick, you know?" Okina pulls a napkin out of the dispenser on the table and dabs at her lips in the daintiest way possible. Beside her, Hitsuji has found that 'flirty' is a hilarious word—if, of course, one pronounced it as _'flurtee',_ as he is doing. "How's it been going with you and Kohta, by the way?"

"Uh..." Kosuke stirs her rice. She's not looking at Okina anymore, instead staring a hole into the table. "We've been texting. Not a lot, but enough. He and his family are on vacation right now, so...Yeah."

"Yeah," Okina repeats. "You want to talk about it yet?"

"No, it's an 'us' thing. No use in talking it out with anyone else, I think."

"Alright. It's fine." Okina jabs her chopsticks upwards, towards the ceiling. "You want to do anything, or...?"

"Movie?"

"Let me do your nails during, and you have a deal."

The next two hours pass in Kosuke's bedroom, her computer propped up on a mattress while Okina, Ikuto, and Kosuke sit on the floor. Kosuke nearly nods off several times, always reawakened by Okina poking her and complaining that she messed up a flower or something. If not that, then Hitsuji asking questions about the movie—you know, the ones all four-year-olds ask, where the answer comes is simply "keep watching"—certainly does the trick.

Once the nails are done, Okina tries to braid Kosuke's hair, which turns out to be a very difficult task since Okina's fingernails keep getting stuck in the strands.

"Please," Kosuke begs when Okina yanks another strand out. "No more!"

"Beauty is pain," Okina snaps back. "Pain is beauty!"

Praise the good Lord above, the phone downstairs rings, and Kosuke escapes. She all-too-happily rips the phone off the wall, despite the burning in her scalp.

"Hello?" she answers.

_"Emiko? Is that you?"_

"No, I'm sorry; this is her daughter."

_"Oh! I'm sorry. Is your mother there?"_

"No, she's on a business trip right now. Do you want me to tell her something when she gets back?"

_"Well, no, it's—your sister, Minami? She's over here for my son's birthday party, but it's over now, and everyone else is gone. I'm fine watching her for a little bit, but I was wondering when your mother would come to pick her up?"_

Huh. The business trip must be going on longer than her parents thought it would. Ah, well.

"I'll call her and see. I'm sure she's on her way right now."

_"Okay, thank you! Goodbye."_

"Goodbye."

Once she's back in her room, Okina tugs on her leg like a needy child, but Kosuke kicks her off. She picks up her phone and dials Marti's number, sitting on the bed as it rings. Okina is left pouting on the floor. Hitsuji points at the movie and asks, "Is the bad guy gonna win?" So the two of them turn their rapt attention to it to see what happens.

Marti does not pick up, nor does Emiko. Kosuke waits for another five minutes and tries again. Still nothing. Another five minutes, and two more voicemails, Kosuke just sighs and goes to her messages.

To: Dad

I know you guys are busy but Minami's party is over. I'm going to go walk her home. Tell mom please

"Alright." Kosuke goes to her closet and pulls the doors open. "I have to go out for a bit. You can stay here if you want."

Okina takes her eyes off her nails. "What's up?"

"Mom and Dad are running late and I need to go get Minami from a party."

"I'll come with you," Okina offers.

"No, I'll come with you," Hitsuji all but demands. He's already on his feet and bouncing with determination. "Kobuay, I'll come with you!"

Kosuke ruffles his curls and turns to Okina. "You can't spend thirty minutes doing your makeup first."

"I'll stay here."

* * *

"Where's Mommy and Daddy?" Minami asks the second Kosuke walks through the door.

Kosuke gives the woman at the door a smile—she has no idea who this woman is, she just knows that she's the mother of the birthday boy, who she also does not know—and goes to her sister. She's wearing a pretty red dress with white lining, but it's kind of undermined by the drying paint on the little girl's fingers. A smear of purple paint goes across Minami's forehead.

"Business stuff," she tells her.

Minami huffs and holds out a wrinkled sheet of paper. "What do they do when they have business stuff?"

"Math," answers Kosuke. "They probably drink coffee and talk about boring stuff, too."

Minami's nose scrunches up, wrinkling her entire face. "Eugh."

"I agree." Kosuke gives her a little bop on the nose.

Hitsuji comes in—having been distracted by the cute but unaffectionate cat that had brushed by him on the way in—and at once goes to give his sister a hug. While she gives it back, Kosuke looks down at the paper.

The fingerpainted drawing is of their family—Minami, Kosuke, Hitsuji, Emiko, and Marti, all standing side-by-side and holding hands. Behind them, there's a house, clouds, a smiling yellow sun, two dogs (that they do not have), a dragon (ditto, sadly), and _maybe_ a boat.

"It's beautiful." Kosuke runs a finger over the dry, mottled paint that makes up the grass. "I really like Mom's dress."

Minami nods with pride. "I got Daddy's mustache, too."

"It's red!"

"Yeah, I didn't have any brown paint."

"...Well, why is my hair blue?"

"Because blue is a pretty color."

"I can't argue with that." Kosuke holds out a hand palm-up, and Minami all but slaps hers into it. "Say goodbye to...your friend. And thank his mother for having you!"

Minami, always eager to keep moving forward, takes all of ten seconds to do both. Then all three of them are outside, walking back for home. Minami tugs on her sister's arms several times, begging to be lifted, but Kosuke just can't. Minami pouts about it, but doesn't whine. The last time she hadn't taken 'no' for an answer, she had all but pounced on Kosuke. The teenager had been knocked off her feet and very nearly split her head on the edge of a table. So now Emiko's words have gone from "Kosuke, pick up your sister, for goodness sakes! She's begging!" to "Minami, no, no, no! She can't take it!"

Hitsuji is not so easily dismissed, and after the second gentle "no", he's getting dangerously close to fussy. It's only by asking him to pick whatever flowers they come across on their walk that he's distracted.

The sky has been overcast all day, but of course, it's just Kosuke's luck that it begins to downpour while they're walking home. The rain is not heavy, and the walk is only about twenty minutes, but Minami nearly has a heart attack when a raindrop hits a corner of her masterpiece. She freaks out in a heartbeat, all while Hitsuji is having the time of his life. Kosuke stuffs the picture into her shirt and powers them the rest of the way through.

When they come back to The Lily Bowl, it's a little past four and it's really starting to come down. Minami immediately runs upstairs to change clothes, while Kosuke just takes to drying her hair with a towel. Hitsuji just plops right back down to his paper-flicking game, and Kosuke almost has to wrangle him out of his soaked jacket.

When she checks her phone, Kosuke sees that her parents still had yet to call or text back. Which is odd, but it has happened before, courtesy of a three-hour traffic jam where both of their phones died.

"Kosuke?"

Kosuke looks up from the ribbons in her fingers. Across from her, Okina is painting Kosuke's toes with exquisite detail. Okina would not let Kosuke near her with anything appearance-changing, not even if her life depended on it, so Kosuke is left braiding her a bracelet that she knows Okina probably isn't going to wear anyway.

Somewhere downstairs, Hitsuji and Minami are playing some game or another, and other than the occasional fussy disagreement, it's quiet. Or, at least, it was, as now Minami stands in her doorway in only a T-shirt that comes down to her knees. It was probably Marti's. Downstairs, Hitsuji is calling for her impatiently.

"Yeah?"

Minami twists a handful of fabric in her fingers as she says, "My roof is leaking."

Kosuke reaches up to her desk and grabs a cup. It still has a bit of sticky soda in it, but whatever, it wasn't like Minami was asking for fine China. It doesn't stop Okina from wrinkling her nose at her when she passes it to Minami, though.

"Here you go," Kosuke says.

Minami's fingers just barely touch the cup when the lights suddenly die.

Minami lets out a little squeak as the room is dimmed to grays and blues. The only light comes from the window, and with the daytime sky covered in stormclouds, it is not so much light as it is an eerie white glow.

Minami suddenly cheers, and Kosuke very narrowly avoids spilling soda on the rug. Downstairs, Hitsuji is calling her over and over, _"Kobuay! Kobuay! Kobuay!"_ She does end up messing up Okina's work, however, and the blonde lets out what can only be likened to the sound of a grieving beast. Her little brother barrels up the stairs far too quickly moments later, one second away from freaking out and only stopped when he sees Minami's smile.

"No lights!" Minami throws her arms into the air and bolts out of the room, still singing, "No lights! No lights!"

Hitsuji joins her with double the enthusiasm. "No whies! No whies! No whies!"

Kosuke sighs and stands to her feet. Okina tries to grab onto her ankle, but she dances out of it easily. "Protocol. You know the drill."

Okina finally just groans and stands to her feet. Kosuke pulls the comforter off of her bed while Okina grabs the pillows. Minami very nearly mows them down in the hallway. She's cocooned herself in her blankets, but still blazes downstairs with ease. Hitsuji is trying to do the same and is content with just dragging a sheet behind him.

"Can we do it in the restaurant?" Minami calls up the stairs. "There's nobody here!"

"Sure," Kosuke calls back, earning a giggle of delight.

Okina and Kosuke rearrange the tables and chairs until there's enough room for them to spread out the blankets. While Minami runs upstairs to get more pillows, Kosuke finds the instant ramen in the kitchen cabinet. She fills a pot full of water, opens the gas flame on the stove, and lets it boil.

"Are we having noodles?" Hitsuji asks her, somehow teleporting right at her side and tugging on her pants leg.

"We sure are," Kosuke replies.

"I want a lot! Give me a lot!"

"Sir, yes sir."

By the time she dumps the ramen in, Okina has gotten all the candles out and on the tables. When Minami asks, Okina lets her blow one out just so she can light it again. Then, of course, Hitsuji does the same, albeit via spitting it out instead of blowing.

The one thing that Kosuke knows how to make is really good instant ramen. Her parents have great disdain for it—or the idea of it. Said it was insulting to genuine ramen chefs (even though that could be applied to any food, ever, in Kosuke's opinion.) Still, that didn't stop the No Lights tradition from coming to existence. Kosuke takes out some ham and onions from the fridge while Okina watches her in a condescendingly impressed way.

In what seems like a very short time, Kosuke, Okina, Hitsuji, and Minami are sitting cross-legged around a little wooden table in the blankets, slurping up ramen and watching rain poor through the door windows. Minami proposes a race to see who can finish first. She and Okina are horrified and impressed when Kosuke wins in about ten seconds. Hitsuji takes the longest and doesn't finish but still declares himself the winner, and who are they to deny him?

The designated No Lights cabinet is thoroughly pillaged. Okina uses an old sewing box to stitch together a little teddy bear. Minami puts together three different puzzles at the same time. Kosuke folds strips of paper into stars. Hitsuji takes out a jumbo-sized coloring book and is just going to town on it.

Once it gets dark enough, Kosuke pulls out the old probable DVD player and some old animated movies. The screen is tiny, but Minami still cuddles up next to it with Hitsuji not far behind. Kosuke goes to make popcorn, old-style, popping kernels in a pan.

While they're popping, Okina stands behind her. Eventually, she asks, "Have your parents said anything yet?"

Kosuke checks her phone. It's almost eight. No messages.

"Nope," she sighs. "They're missing out."

The four of them get all through one movie huddled together, munching on popcorn, whispering in the dark. They pop another movie in, but Minami is already nodding off, and the lights come back on halfway through. Hitsuji has already fallen asleep and doesn't notice a thing.

"Lights," Minami mumbles. She yawns with her mouth wide open.

"Lights," Kosuke agrees.

The three of them stand to their feet, and Minami raises her arms at Kosuke. She looks sideways at Okina, who is all too conveniently folding up blankets and blowing out candles.

Kosuke reluctantly picks up her sister and makes it up the stairs before her legs give up on her. Minami brushes her teeth and goes straight to bed. Kosuke wouldn't mind joining her, but knowing that Okina is still downstairs, she whispers a goodnight and goes down.

That leaves Hitsuji to take upstairs, and he is _not_ amused by her denial to lift him up. He very nearly cries when he's told he's going to have to just walk the rest of the way up. Bribing him with a bedtime story fails, and it's only when Kosuke puts her foot down that he finally complies. He drops the disappointment quickly once she's getting him into his pajamas. _Then_ she leaves him and Minami to sleep to their heart's content.

All it takes is a few more minutes of cleaning up. Okina sits down at a table, and Kosuke sits across from her before checking her phone.

Still no messages. It's past nine.

"They have some explaining to do," groans Kosuke. Then she adds, "You can go home if you want."

"No," Okina sighs. "I'll just text my dad that I'll be home late. You know how freaked you get when you're home alone."

"Only when it's dark."

"You still believe in ghosts, just admit it."

Ten minutes pass. Kosuke takes the dirty dishes to the dishwasher and cleans up in the kitchen a bit.

No messages.

Twenty minutes pass. Kosuke goes upstairs to change into her pajamas. Okina takes a shower while she's spreading her blankets over her bed. They've slept in the same bed plenty times before, and even if it was a twin and they were well grown by this point, there wasn't an ounce of awkwardness to be found in the arrangement.

No messages.

Thirty minutes pass. Okina takes almost an hour in the shower and still isn't completely satisfied with the perfect silkiness of her hair when she's done. When she comes back downstairs, Kosuke is waiting at a table. It's past eleven.

No messages.

"Have they been out this late before?" Okina asks.

"No," Kosuke answers. "Never."

It's almost midnight when someone knocks on the door.

Kosuke stands to her feet, relieved but annoyed at the same time. Figures that when she doesn't answer her phone within five seconds, Marti and Emiko get mad at her. But almost ten hours on their end is okay.

She pulls the door open, neverminding that she's still just wearing her pajamas because honestly, the nerve of these people. "You guys better have a good excuse..."

It's not her parents on the other side of the door. It's a police officer.


	3. Drowning

_Two people are dead after a one-car crash yesterday evening._

_According to Corporal Ken Yoshida, Marti Nakahara of Karuizawa was driving a 2003 Honda Odyssey just outside of city limits on an unnamed dirt road. Nakahara seemed to have been speeding around a tight turn and lost control of the vehicle._

_The car veered off the road and dropped down a steep hill, overturning an unknown number of times before crashing into trees._

_Marti's wife, Emiko Nakahara, was also in the car at the time of the accident. Both were killed on impact._

_The crash is currently under investigation._

Kosuke thinks it's funny in a not very funny way that the end of everything she knows got summed up in five choppy paragraphs.

The author doesn't mention her or Minami or Hitsuji.

They don't mention that Emiko and Marti were parents at all.

Or that they owned the local restaurant _The Lily Bowl._

Or that they were heading to a business trip.

Or that their oldest daughter was getting ready for college.

Or that Emiko was trying to give up smoking.

Or that Marti still had his high school clothes in cardboard boxes.

Or that Emiko liked to read horror books in her free time.

Or that Marti used to cater cruise ships and travelled all over the ocean.

Or that Emiko and Marti Nakahara were two actual, living people that couldn't be summed up in five choppy paragraphs.

A lot of people end up coming to The Lily Bowl that day. Neighbors and friends.

Kohta and Okina, of course. At some point, Jet and Tomoko. A teacher or two from school. Ai.

The whole place is full to the point where not everyone can fit inside.

Kosuke cries.

She cries, and she cries, and she cries until it hurts but she can't stop.

She cries into Kohta's chest and soaks the front of his shirt.

She cries into dozens of handkerchiefs that women old and young seem to give her at every other moment.

She cries against Okina, completely slung over her while the girl struggles to keep her on her feet.

She goes to the bathroom to take a break from it all, but then she's on the floor, back against the wall, her head between her knees, crying so hard she can't breathe. The bathroom is too small. Her broken voice sounds tinny in her ears.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad.

Her eyes hurt.

Her throat hurts.

Her chest hurts.

She's drowning and no one can pull her to safety.

She's drowning and all the comforting hugs, the prayers, the tears wiped away with fingers that aren't her own, they all make her sink faster.

Minami. Hitsuji.

Oh _god,_ her baby brother and sister.

Minami understands but she can't accept it.

Kosuke can't escape her sounds.

The bawling.

The screaming.

The demands for Mommy and Daddy to come home.

People try to comfort her, but they are strangers.

Hitsuji does not understand.

He knows that a lot of people are in his house but Mama and Daddy aren't. He knows that Kobuay and Meeamee are crying, but he doesn't know why.

Kosuke—the one remaining "adult" of his family—is too weak to comfort him in any way, shape, or form, so it is up to Okina to tend to him when she isn't propping up her friend.

A few adults, mostly women, and most of those women sort-of family friends, try to console him or distract him. But so many strangers suddenly so close to him just freaks him out.

He and another child, a slightly older one no doubt dragged there by his parents, sequester themselves outside to play.

Kosuke can't escape any of it.

She can't escape the murmur of the crowd, the whispers, her sister's screams, the patter of Hitsuji's feet, confused, across the floor.

So she screams, too.

She clamps her hands over her ears and just screams as loud as she can, loud enough to tear her throat, loud enough for everything to spill out at once. It feels like something is ripping its way out of her, something horrible and wretched.

Afterwards, she's exhausted.

It's a heavy weight off her shoulders but she's still left with pins and needles stinging everywhere.

She stops crying.

Her eyes are as red as her hair. Snot and drool run down her chin.

She wipes them away.

She can't talk anymore.

She comes out of the bathroom seconds, minutes, hours later and everyone seems to understand that she can't talk because no one asks anything. A stray handkerchief or two dab away her tears and she has to restrain from slapping them away.

The sun starts to set. People start to leave.

She wonders where Minami is. She asks. She's upstairs, locked in her room. Hitsuji is sleeping.

An elderly woman that may or may not be familiar comes to her, and she's the first person that day to talk to her in a way that isn't sugary or quiet.

She's straightforward, but kindly. She offers her help with the funeral arrangements. She'll help them figure out how to pay the bills. She'll help them with everything they need.

Kosuke realizes then that this is going to keep going.

Kosuke realizes that this is going to go on tomorrow, next week, forever and ever.

They're gone.

Time doesn't seem to make sense after this.

Eventually, it's night. Only a handful of people remain, and they leave one by one.

Kohta has to go home or his parents will begin to worry. He kisses her forehead again and again. He wipes the tears from her eyes. She sees tears in his eyes, too, and wonders distantly why. He had never been particularly close to either of her parents for the two years they'd been together. But maybe that's why, that he had missed an opportunity to know them.

Kosuke wants to ask him not to go, but she can't. He leaves.

Her house, the restaurant—what's going to happen to the restaurant?—is full of strangers. She is offered places to stay. So many people ask if she and her siblings want to spend the night, the week, at their home. Okina almost demands it. Her parents, who Kosuke has met many times before and were always nothing but kind to her, agree.

Kosuke says no.

She doesn't know why.

Maybe because she can't grasp that there's a _reason_ for Okina to stay over. That Okina sleeping over is not for fun, not one of their usual routines, but because Okina does not want to leave her to her own grief, is a pill that she can't swallow.

Okina has been holding her throughout the day, and she's holding her then and there. She's held her around her waist and almost carried her from one room to the other, but now her fingers are gripping Kosuke's arms and her eyes are steely on her. She is silently commanding Kosuke to stay standing. She's not crying because she already has. She'd known Marti and Emiko for years and years—the man who had carried her two city blocks when she fell off her bike and skinned her knee, the woman who always whipped up chicken noodle soup each and every time she got sick, both of them coming to every performance they ever could—and though she would miss them, they were not her parents.

Okina holds Kosuke upright and she's saying something that Kosuke can't really hear even though she's right there and it's to her and her alone. Okina does not leave her until she is convinced that Kosuke will not fall down, and before she goes, she hugs her, squeezes her, and pulls back to press a kiss against Kosuke's bangs.

After she goes, Kosuke is alone.

The house is quiet.

She realizes that she has not eaten a thing all day, but her stomach is roiling too much to take anything. The thought of food alone makes her sick.

The crowd has left chairs out of place, things that were not where they should have been. The trash cans are full. Someone got plastic cups out for water and now they're everywhere.

She doesn't have the energy to fix any of it.

She's lazy, she's a slob, but now she truly just does not have the energy to fix anything.

She locks the doors and closes the windows.

She looks up at the clock and wonders when her mother and father are coming home.

She remembers that they won't.

Kosuke goes upstairs.

She wants to go into her bed. No pajamas, no teeth-brushing. Just go into her bed and never wake up, or wake up and find out that it is all a bad dream. She can imagine it as a day like any other. She'd be woken up, probably crying, and she would explain to a confused and worried Marti and maybe Emiko the dream she'd just had. They would comfort her and laugh at the fear that anything would ever happen to them.

A morning like any other, like yesterday.

Like _yesterday._

She passes by the bathroom door and pauses.

She knocks. Minami yells at her to go away.

Kosuke begs her to open the door. Her voice sounds and feels like sandpaper.

Minami finally does. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are wet. Snot bubbles in her nose. She can't breathe right.

Kosuke holds her. She doesn't hug her, she just holds her and lets her fade like she did.

Minami begins to scream again. It's muffled in Kosuke's clothes.

Kosuke tries to run her fingers through her hair, but her hands are stiff.

She begins to cry again, too. It does not consume her as it did before. She doesn't even realize it until drops begin to fall in Minami's hair. The tears feel hot running down her face.

The two end up in Minami's bed, and of all the times that Kosuke has hated herself for not being able to pick up her sister, it's nothing compared to now. The bed is small, and Kosuke won't fit.

But she stays there, until Minami's breaths begin to quiet, until the hiccups fade away. She falls asleep, leaving Kosuke alone. She realizes that her fingers are still tangled in Minami's hair and she pulls them away, wondering when her hair got that long and curly.

On the other side of the room, Hitsuji sleeps on. He's quiet, and he's small. Impossibly small. He's so young that Kosuke cannot even begin to guess what he'll look like when he's older. She realizes then and there that Emiko and Marti will never find out. They will never see him in high school, or college. He will grow and get tall and his voice will get deeper and he will be almost unrecognizable compared to the little boy now and they aren't going to see any of it.

There will be birthdays and Christmases and Halloweens, summer vacations and winter breaks, school parties and festivals, Hitsuji's first lost tooth, the first time Minami rides a bike without training wheels, the first day of kindergarten, recitals, plays, sport team tryouts, ball games, first boyfriend, first girlfriend, first breakups, first jobs, graduations, diplomas, weddings, and more and more and more and more and there will now always be two empty places where a mother and father should be.

Kosuke sits between their beds, and sitting there in the blue moonlight with only the sounds of children's breathing to accompany her, she doesn't feel real.

Kosuke can't take this.

She can't live like this.

She can't—

Who's going to pick up Minami from school for now on?

Who's going to run the restaurant?

Who's going to take care of them? _Her?_

Her parents are dead, and it's not just that it's unfair and cruel and crushes down upon her like a physical weight, it's that it just doesn't feel right. It's not like a book that has no ending, but a book that has had its main character ripped from it, leaving a noticeable void and only a vague sense that something should be there, but isn't.

_Come back,_ Kosuke thinks in the quiet of the house, with her sleeping siblings at her head and feet. She feels something wretched crawling up her throat and she stifles it in a blanket so they don't hear. _Come back, come back. Don't go._

* * *

There is a strange period that follows between that day and the funeral proper, and the only way Kosuke would be able to describe it (to both herself and the very few people who she would confess to later) was like a dream. She would admit (again, to both herself and those few people) that that sounds very, very cheesy, but she means it as literally as she can. It happened, she knew that, but she remembers very few details and only a vague idea that she was even there to see it happen.

The vast, vast majority of it will be completely lost to her only weeks afterward. She does not remember eating breakfast or buying groceries for the first time by herself, nor does she remember getting dressed every morning or going to sleep every night. She doesn't even really remember any showers she had or the times she brushed her teeth, and she wonders every now and then if she even did those things.

The vague things are the talks she has with people over the week.

Okina just about never leaves her side, let alone her house. Okina heats up microwave dinners for her and brushes her hair when she can't get knots out. Kosuke would later swear that there was one day where Okina helped her into her pajamas when she couldn't do it herself, but maybe that didn't happen at all. Besides just her, Okina plays with Hitsuji when he gets restless, and pulls Minami away when she begins to ask questions ("Are Mommy and Daddy really dead?"), and especially when those questions turn angry ("No, they're not! They're not!"). Not three days ago, Okina had glared at Kosuke when she wouldn't carry Minami, but now she pulls her sister away because she knows she can't take it.

Kohta comes, just not as frequently, but Kosuke takes what she can get from him. Admittedly, the two of them don't talk much at all. Almost all their time is just him holding her, brushing her hair back from her face again and again. He also plays with the children, but it's awkward and stilted and even the little ones know it's not real. When she cries, he comforts her. When she sleeps, he's there when she wakes. There are times when she struggles to even stand and he holds her hands until her feet find balance.

(They kiss once and only once when he's leaving one night, and even though it's soft and tender and almost feels like a promise, Kosuke knew there and then that what she had been dreading was true all along, but the closure of that would only come later.)

Okina's parents—their names were Mai and Akinari, which Kosuke would always remember even when they faded from her life—come by every now and then, more or less just to make sure the house doesn't collapse. Mai dusts and cleans and does laundry, and she almost teaches Kosuke how to do it before she realizes that she just isn't up to it. Akinari actually proves to be the most helpful person during the time. It's him and the woman who had been there before—Kosuke had never remembered _her_ name, and that would bother her for years and years after—that make funeral arrangements and pay the taxes and pretty much anything that involves paper.

They ask her when she wants to pick out coffins and tombstones and she more or less begs them to just do it themselves. They end up choosing ones that are pretty but affordable. And if Kosuke is later bothered that she doesn't remember that unknown woman's name, there would be times when she almost cries remembering the kindness these people had given to her in that time.

Minami is always either dead quiet, yelling, or crying. There are literally no in-betweens. If she's not wandering around the house as quiet as a ghost, then she's yelling at everyone to leave her alone, and if she's not doing that she's crying so hard that Mai at one point goes outside and comes back with red eyes. She rarely does what she's told, and who can blame her?

Hitsuji has apparently grasped that his parents are really, truly not going back, but he's still so much more confused than anything else. As if he understands the finality of it but he still asks when they're coming back, or just where they are in general. It doesn't matter how many times they explain it to him then, because he just won't get it. But between the confusion, he's laughing and playing and fussing about what he does and doesn't want. He's just being a child, a normal child, but the overall mood of the house and everyone in it makes it seem like he's always loud.

Kosuke does what Kosuke apparently does best: just about nothing. She sleeps, wakes up, eats, repeat. She's behaving just as she always has, and she finds herself once again in that paradox of beating herself up over how she is but not doing a thing to change it. When spoken to, she speaks. When asked to do something, she answers. She talks to Minami and Hitsuji like they aren't even there, or that she wishes they weren't. And it was true that at times, when Minami yelled too loudly or Hitsuji laughed too happily, that Kosuke really did wish they weren't there.

The future version of her would take some bittersweet pride in that this was as low as she ever got, while at the same time wanting to go back in time, grab that past girl and throttle her until she was a pulp.

The wake comes in all of its haunting, you-can't-hide-anymore glory. Kosuke dresses in the only black dress she has, and even then it doesn't seem fitting for the occasion and never before has she regretted dying her hair red this badly. Minami's dress looks better than hers, and they pull her curls back in a black ribbon. Someone—who?—finds Hitsuji's one, single formal suit and dresses him in it.

They go to there, driven there by Okina's family, and Kosuke spends the next three hours exhausted, then more exhausted, then more. There is very little difference in this affair than when so many people had come to her house before. She has to shake hands and give hugs and nod and just give the most mechanical of responses. _Yes. Thank you for coming. Of course._ She sees people she has never met before crying, and that almost makes her angry, and even she doesn't know why.

Minami and Hitsuji are more or less being paraded around. Kosuke is an "adult" now. She knows what's going on and has encountered death before. She'd been to her fair share of funerals, she had a goldfish or two buried in the backyard. But Minami and Hitsuji are always being knelt down and whispered to. Strangers call them brave and tell them to be strong. They remind them that Mommy and Daddy loved them very much, and to just think of this as a "see you later" instead of a "goodbye." Minami cries and Kosuke still can't confront it and Hitsuji asks what the two boxes in the front of the room are for and someone pulls him away.

There are several people from school there. Kohta, Tomoko, Jet, so on. The three of them mostly stick together when Kohta isn't at Kosuke's side. Tomoko spends most of the time on her phone, nothing out of the usual, and Jet at least reins himself in enough to not be…himself. Okina more or less runs the whole thing, answering questions and giving directions about what should go where. Even the black dress she wears looks almost like a ballerina's costume and Kosuke actually laughs about it, but it sounds so much like a sob that it brings four people flocking over to her at the sound.

There are flowers _everywhere_ and Kosuke guesses that's where the "wake" smell comes from, because she recognized it the second she walked in. There are bluebells and chrysanthemums and daisies and so on, so forth, all beautiful and waxy in their vases.

There's supposed to be a time in which the friends and family place flowers in the coffins around the heads of the deceased to wreath them. Maybe a few sentimental objects, too, but mostly flowers. If things had turned out maybe just slightly different—if the car had not crashed the way it did, if it had not rolled over so many times—maybe they would be doing this. Everyone would see Emiko in a white dress with daisies studding her almost silvery hair, and Marti would be in black with bluebells in the chestnut waves of his hair. Beautiful and handsome, but eerily waxy, physically there but not seeming real.

Instead, the only thing to see at the front is two long, wooden boxes, and that's it. No final looks, no white dresses or black suits, nothing. She knows she talked to someone about it at some point, but it's just another hazy detail in so many other hazy details. _You'll probably want to keep the caskets closed,_ they had said, whoever they were. Kosuke had agreed in her stupor, but now she thinks that maybe that was for the best.

But when the time comes for her to come to the two coffins, standing between them much like how she had sat between Minami and Hitsuji's beds the first night of this nightmare, Kosuke almost screams again. There's nothing between her and her parents but two sheets of hard, glossy wood and that might just hurt more than seeing them in their entirety.

So that ends, and the funeral comes the day after, and everyone wears the same clothes and goes to the same place. It really doesn't seem like there has been any pause between the two events at all. The coffins are taken to hearses, and the hearses go to the crematorium, and the three Nakahara children—or orphans, rather—climb into the back of the Henkas' car and follow.

The night before there had been something close to an argument between them all about the cremation, more specifically who would go and who would stay. Mai made it clear that she thought all three of the children should be there for it, while Kosuke made it clear that if her baby brother and baby sister didn't want to see two boxes and their parents within them go up in flames, then they wouldn't have to, and neither Marti nor Emiko would be forcing them otherwise. Mai was unhappy with this and Kosuke comes very close to telling the mother of her best friend to mind her own business and remember that what she does and doesn't like doesn't really matter right now, does it?

Minami almost chose to stay behind, and that was at first fine by Kosuke, but she wanted Minami to understand her decision. It at first didn't matter if she asked Minami if she would regret it later, or if she didn't want to say goodbye— _see you later—_ one last time, because the girl's mind couldn't get past _burn_ and _Mommy and Daddy._ It's only when they are standing at the doors, watching the coffins being carried down the steps, that she changes her mind.

Kosuke is surprised and unsurprised that Hitsuji agrees to go almost without question. He's been doing very well this whole time, but once again, it is only because of the blessed naiveté of a four-year-old. Kosuke wondered if Minami will regret not seeing her parents' cremation when she's older, but she also wondered if Hitsuji would even realize that he did until _he_ was older. Even as they climb into the car, the little boy really just looks confused and curious.

In hindsight, watching those coffins go up in flames should have been the hardest part of it all, but it's really the easiest. The full weight of losing her parents has already hit her full force and nothing after can really do any more damage. They were gone and not coming back, and since she'd already realized and taken that, what could watching one more "yes, it's true" really do to her?

Kosuke has her sister on her leg and her brother in her arms, somehow, when the heat of the fire washes over them.

There's a very strange calmness that comes over her, and just when she thinks that maybe tears would build in her eyes again, the feeling dies away and her head is clearer than it has ever been in the past week. She feels so at peace, in fact, that she finds herself forgetting about the burning fire in front of her in favor of wondering just what on earth is happening.

Was she in some state of shock? Was this some grievous disassociating?

They go home, at least until it's time for them to return. She is the first to get out of the car, and makes a beeline to the door in her still-lingering stupor. She knows that there will be some inevitable talk between everyone about what comes next, but for now she's just focusing on getting the door open.

She does, and the yellow sunlight spreads across the floorboards of the Lily Bowl. Kosuke sees the dining room, same as it had always been, but she sees other things too, things that aren't really there. She sees years of commitment and hard work. More than that, she sees feet walking across the floorboards, people smiling and chatting over their meals. Beyond that, in the kitchen, she sees Emiko and Marti, sweat on their brows and never pausing for a moment. She sees a man who had committed his life to making good food, and a woman who discovered it by chance.

Then Kosuke sees three pairs of feet walking into the room for the first time—a mother, her husband of a year, and their now-shared daughter of seven. She sees her getting her first haircut, Emiko trying to get it just right before finally giving the scissors to Marti. Her first day of school, saluting her parents like a soldier going to war, only to pick up her backpack and immediately topple over, Marti and Emiko rushing over to help. Carrying a plate to a table, only ten years old, smiling when the couple praise her for her good work, catching her mother's eye as she heads back to the kitchen and the two of them smiling to one another.

Coming home with her new baby sister and introducing her to the house as if she has any idea what she's saying. Minami taking her first steps and their parents laughing while Kosuke is practically shrieking her head off in joy. _Minami's_ first day of kindergarten, holding her sister's hand, and Kosuke being close enough that she's the one who picks her up when the backpack topples Minami over. Minami dancing in circles when she finds out she's going to have a brother, and Kosuke feigning surprise when she already knew for weeks. Their brother's first birthday, all laughing and having fun, even as rain beat down from outside and Emiko took unhappy glances at the bright candy red of her daughter's hair.

Birthdays and Christmases, Halloweens and New Years. Late nights and rush hours, unexpected field trip groups and bad reviews. All together in this one room.

Kosuke sees them, and she realizes that the calmness she's feeling is…Well, no. She still doesn't know what she's feeling. Determination, perhaps? But it's not a roaring fire, more like a steady burning that's going through her from her chest outward.

A long time after that—a _long_ time—she would swear that just for a moment, she feels a hand on either of her shoulders. She does not hear two voices, but she still somehow hears what they want to tell her.

_Keep going and be strong._

Kosuke decides then and there that she will.


	4. Poison Control

Kosuke spends the next month learning everything that her mind can possibly fit.

She learns how to do the laundry. Which medicines to use for which sickness and ailment. How to clean the bathrooms. How to double-bag the garbage. Which cleaning liquids can be mixed together and which ones should absolutely not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, be mixed together. How to clean out the gutters of the roof. How to sew up tears in clothing. What to do if a machine is on the fritz. How to wash the dishes when the dishwasher is one of the machines that is on the fritz.

Blisters form on her palms at some point, leaving them not hard as rock but not as soft as they were before. She goes to sleep later and gets up earlier. She gets used to tossing up her hair in a ponytail and sometimes forgets to take it down before she goes to bed.

There is a _lot_ of paper involved in this process, mostly because of money. _Damn,_ does she have to deal with so many money issues. Not just how to do taxes and make a budget, but picking up the things her parents left. Emiko and Marti have left a trust for all three of them, and that atop of the inheritance they all get in a three-way split, and _that_ on top of their stashed money—tucked away in a fireproof box under her parents' bed, most of it Kosuke's only there because she could never really grasp how a bank account worked—means that they are all pretty well off.

At first, anyway.

There are inheritance taxes, the funeral, cremation, coffin, and other "death" fees, and overall a good chunk of it all is put away just to pay for the house and the children's school costs. Kosuke could go on and on about every last detail, but she really doesn't care to. She finally gets an understanding of everything from Okina's parents, but even then she swears her brain physically hurts after.

After it's all taken care of, they're well-off enough, but Kosuke starts calculating everything down to the penny.

The children eventually return to school—Minami to second grade, Hitsuji to preschool. Together, this will cost them about 11,000 yen, which is only a problem because their income is frozen cold, something that Kosuke will have to face later. Okina and Kohta had both put off Seneca and Oshimi for as long as they could, but time had run out, and towards the beginning of May it is time to return. Kosuke, meanwhile, decides that there is simply no realistic way that she's going to college at a time like this. So one refund later, she's officially the only one out of the five of them not attending school.

The hardest thing of all is shutting down The Lily Bowl.

It really hurts, closing the doors on the restaurant that her parents had poured their sweat, blood, and tears into, but she just doesn't have a choice. She was never going to sell the place—it was their _home_ just as much as their business—but she isn't grown or experienced enough to be a business owner and manager, and she _definitely_ cannot take her parents' places in the kitchen.

She has to fire all the workers with one last severance pay. None of them are really close (there were less than ten, and no one had held a job there longer than a year) but they take it with grace and give her no trouble for it. She hangs a sign on the fence outside that reads _CLOSED INDEFINITELY_. Just about every day, she has at least five people coming for a meal, and she has to send them away with a quick explanation and an apology.

In summation, she just learns how to be an _adult._

She gets back on her feet with such a vengeance that Okina and Kohta are scared. Their visits become half to comfort her in her grief and half out of concern for her mental state. She's always on her feet, always asking questions. She carries around a notebook and crams it full of notes and footnotes and sticky notes on top of that.

The first time it's time to clean the house, she chooses to do it by herself, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a cloth tied around her mouth to block out the fumes. By the time she's done, the house is actually almost too clean to look at, too lemon-scented to breathe in for long, and she cannot lift her arms up for the next two hours. Okina has to spoon-feed her dinner.

She finds a schedule for herself unlike any schedule she's ever had before. Seven o'clock, everyone wakes up. Seven-thirty, everyone eats cereal for breakfast. Seven fifty, walk the children to school. Nine ten, get started on the chores. Eleven o'clock, lunch. Twelve o'clock, head out and take care of whatever daily outings need to be taken care of. Three-fifty, return home with kids from school. Resume paperwork. Five-fifteen, microwave her and the children's dinner, or head over to Okina's for it. Eight-o'clock, put the kids to bed. Ten o'clock, throw cold water in her face when she starts to nod off. Midnight-ish, go to bed and pass out in seconds.

Repeat.

Okina and Kohta offer their help on the weekends and she turns them down almost every time. She is grateful, of course, she lets them know, but she's spent so long letting everyone do everything for her that she has to just figure it out herself. She realizes at some point that her constant glare of determination makes her look more like she's always angry about something. She can't fix it, though, even when everyone backs away from her in fear.

She's always in the future when it's really the present. At breakfast, she thinks about lunch. In the middle of one chore, she's planning on how to do another. Even as she talks to Okina and Kohta and a few people who didn't come to the wake or the funeral but want to offer their condolences, she's thinking about how much the week is going to take out of the bank.

She gathers up just about every bit of junk food she has left in the house, picks out which ones are just borderline fine enough to stay, and gives the rest to Okina and Kohta. When she passes them a box full of cookies, chips, and only God knows how many candies, they take it with polite understanding. When she hands them her remaining bottles of Candy Juice, Kohta pins her down to the couch so Okina can take her temperature.

Every time her muscles ache, or sleep starts to creep up on her, she either splashes cold water in her face, chugs down a cup of caffeine-filled coffee, or just repeats her parents'-not-parents voice in her head.

_Keep going and be strong._

There are moments of weakness, of course. Once or twice she struggles with something, gets up to ask Emiko or Marti about it, and remembers she can't. Mornings where she wakes up and remembers what's happening. Times when she has to go into their bedroom to get something, but never lasts more than two minutes before breaking down and hoping the kids don't hear her before she manages to get out again.

There are nights where she can't sleep, and it's not really a solution, but creeping into the kids' bedroom and sitting between them as they dream helps soothe her some.

 _Keep going and be strong,_ she always remembers when she leaves, making sure to tread lightly so that the creak of the floorboards doesn't wake them. _Keep going and be strong._

* * *

If she doesn't spend her every waking moment taking care of anything and everything, she's taking care of Hitsuji and Minami.

And sweet merciful heaven, Kosuke has never given her parents enough credit, because taking care of one child, let alone two, is _**hard.**_

It does take a while for Minami to get back to normal. It isn't until maybe three weeks after the start of it all, almost May, that she actually starts to smile again, maybe not as freely but just as genuinely. She becomes a bit more likely to whine, getting shaky-voiced where she usually would have brushed things off, but besides that, she falls back into her old habits. She runs around the house barefoot, steals the broom to pretend to be a witch, puts on her swimsuit when it starts to rain and goes outside to dance in the downpour. She makes more paper rings in the chain she's stuffing in her closet, long enough to all the way up the stairs now. In the mornings she makes Kosuke watch a fashion show of the outfits she's considering.

(Nine times out of ten, this takes so much time that Kosuke eventually has to allow her to just wear her rainboots when it's not raining and her most formal dress when it's time to go to the park.)

Hitsuji somehow does a little better, so much so that he's almost— _almost_ —back to normal in almost no time. He laughs and he makes other people laugh when he can. If he does something that gets a laugh from anyone, he'll do it a dozen times more. He makes tents out of the unused chairs in the dining room and takes out the pots and pans to bang on them like drums. He likes to do puzzles and do just about any kind of game that involves a ball, but refuses to do them without someone (hence why paperwork always takes so long). He can play hide-and-seek and tag for hours on end.

Kosuke still cannot hold them for more than five minutes at a time, and for now, she still sometimes has to make excuses that lets her stay seated for a little bit. "Here, you do it and I'll watch, okay?" She wakes them up in the morning and puts them to bed every night. When they fall down at the park, it's up to her to run to and comfort them. If their tummies ache, it's up to her to drop everything like hot metal and get to the bottom of it.

She loves them, her sister and her brother, she loves them and she wouldn't give them up for anything in the world.

But it is. so. _**hard.**_

See, the ways that kids and adults deal with grief can be similar and dissimilar. They both cry, of course. They can both pent up how they feel and let it out at the same time. They both turn to the people close to them for support.

But kids—at least those at Minami and Hitsuji's ages—have ways of dealing with grief that range from simple lashing out and misbehavior to full-on regression. _That_ is what makes it all so _**hard.**_

It's not enough that Minami is always full of energy, likes to talk, and bounces from one thing to the next. On top of that, losing both her mother and her father and having to accept that her sister really isn't her sister anymore so much as her new parent just makes her…not insufferable, but "hard-to-put-up-with." If Kosuke asks her to stop doing something, she'll roll her eyes or say a sassy excuse to make Kosuke look like a tyrannical villain. If she keeps doing it, Kosuke has to put her foot down, and by that point she'll either start crying or lock herself in her room. She gets upset more easily in general. Kosuke loses track of how many times they'll be at the park, her sitting with Okina or Kohta or both of them, and Minami comes running to her, crying about a game her and some other children are playing. Not because they were cheating or being mean, but just because she wasn't winning.

She cries when Kosuke tells her to go to bed, cries when Kosuke tells her that she's not getting dessert before she finishes her dinner, cries when Kosuke won't buy her whatever toy or candy she asks for at the grocery store.

Hitsuji shares a lot of these problems, particularly crying at simple things, albeit it's actually _wailing_ for him. But he also starts talking more babyish. He stops saying his "L" sounds and instead of saying "I want" or "Can I?", he relies almost solely on making whiny _"Eh! Eh! Eh!"_ noises. He starts wetting the bed again and loses grasp on any answer more difficult than "yes" or "no." So, if he asks Kosuke to play hide-and-seek, and she says "in a minute", he'll just ask again and again as if she isn't answering him at all. Bad habits that he already had before get worse. He refuses to stay in his seat for more than thirty seconds at a time. If Kosuke says "no, don't do that", he translates this as "let's make this a game!" and will keep doing it, giggling and smug, until Kosuke plants her foot a little firmer. Then he starts crying.

There's a night where Hitsuji spends thirty minutes straight screaming his face red because Kosuke won't let him open the knife drawer. There's a morning where Minami wants to go out into the rain, but Kosuke tells her no because it's thundering, and she cries about it until she finally tries to sneak out, and bawls when that sends her right into time-out.

They exhaust Kosuke to no end, and once or twice she snaps at them a little too harshly, her temper pushed just a little too far over the edge.

There's more to it than just exhaustion and annoyance, though. Kosuke's always wondering if she's doing it _right._ When should she let things slide, and when should she put a stop to them? When should she try to convince them to do something else, and when should she just tell them to stop doing whatever it is they're doing, period? She reprimands them when they misbehave, but when she praises them for good behavior, is she balancing it enough? With only Kosuke left, are they going to grow up spoiled, distant, rotten?

For that first month, that's what causes her the most stress. Still, when either of her siblings begin to ask for Mommy or Daddy, or just weep at the never-changing knowledge that they are gone forever, not just for a little while, that there is no "when they come back", Kosuke just puts that all aside and pulls them into her arms.

* * *

It's about three and a half weeks after the night her parents died when she and Kohta go on a kind of-sort of date on one of the weekends he comes home. It ends in complete, utter disaster.

Minami and Hitsuji are dropped off at Okina's house while the two of them go out. Okina gets her ballet practice out of the way early to put the time aside. She waves goodbye to them, but the shallow smile on her face as she waves goodbye to them tells Kosuke that even Okina knows that something's up.

Kohta and Kosuke just walk around the town side-by-side. They talk about Kohta's upcoming semester and Kosuke's woes with all the paperwork. Kohta buys her dinner at a local restaurant and she makes a point of getting the most inexpensive dish, a fried fish meal that she doesn't even like but eats regardless. They stroll through stores without buying anything, and when they make it to the old antique store, they stand in there for ten minutes just so they can hear all the grandfather clocks go off at the same time.

Kosuke hardly enjoys herself for a second.

Oh, she manages to put her worries aside just for the night. She likes to walk around town without meaning, she likes eating food that isn't microwavable-ready or leftover from the night before, she likes listening to the clocks sing together. The night is neither hot nor cold and she lets her hair down for the first time in a while, dressed in something besides jeans and a T-shirt.

But there isn't a second between her and her boyfriend that feels even slightly tender. The way they talk to each other is like two strangers at a party, waiting for their friends to come and get them. Their meal is spent in near silence before and after they get their food. As they shop, they both feign fascination with everything they find just so they don't have to try to come up with a conversation topic.

It's stiff, awkward, almost entirely void of emotion, and Kosuke is more bothered that she isn't surprised, above all else.

Kohta does at least try to avoid any stressful conversation. Her parents do not come up once, he doesn't ask about her siblings. Nothing is said unless she brings it up first. Problem being that those things took up the entirety of Kosuke's life at the moment, so what else was there to talk about?

It's only a few minutes after the clocks chime that Kosuke gets a phone call from Okina.

Hitsuji is really, _really_ sick.

It takes five minutes for Kosuke to _run_ to the Henkas' house, at such a speed that she's almost flying and just about falls flat on her face five times. She runs so fast that Kohta arrives almost seven minutes after her, completely out of breath.

Okina physically draws back from her when she flies into the house, practically screaming, "What's wrong?"

She's pulled into the living room, where her little brother is curled up on the sofa, holding his belly and crying so awfully. Kosuke smells something vile—vomit. Hitsuji looks pale, and despite the tears, a little sleepy. A line of drool goes down his chin.

Minami runs to her as soon as she comes in. "Is Hitsuji okay?"

Kosuke forces herself to calm down and not act even the slightest bit scared. She cannot deal with a child scared solid when there's already one on the brink of consciousness. "I'm sure he's fine, Mina. Hold on."

She goes to Hitsuji and kneels down. He won't even look at her. He's whimpering, and more drool spills out.

"Hey, buddy. Hey. Can you tell me what's wrong? Why're you crying?"

The answer she gets is garbled at best. "Tastes bad…"

Okina appears near-instantly with a cold glass of water, but when Kosuke presses it to his lips, he draws back with a whine.

"It's just to get the taste out, bud. Just a little bit."

She tries to coax him to it, but he's scared and stubborn, so he just burrows his face into the sofa cushion and refuses.

Every worst possible scenario is bouncing around Kosuke's head like pachinko balls. She considers a simple stomach bug, then food poisoning, then the first step of a deadly illness.

Kosuke asks Hitsuji questions—"How do you feel?" "What did you eat?" "Did you eat something you weren't supposed to?"—but he won't answer any of them. Kosuke remembers this behavior from Minami's age. He wants to be better and stop hurting, but he also wants everyone to leave him alone, not do anything.

"Kosuke, breathe. You have to breathe."

She's right, because Kosuke is only just now realizing that her lungs are tight. She takes a deep breath, practically sucking in air, and takes a second to collect herself. Kohta has a sponge and a rag, going to clean up the mess—troublesome but necessary. Minami is on the brink of freaking out. Hitsuji is still drooling and whimpering. Okina is ready to help.

"Get me the phone."

She does so without question. Kosuke punches in the numbers and waits two rings before the voice of poison control comes on.

" _Poison control, what's your emergency?"_

"My little brother is—he's thrown up twice and he's drooling and holding his stomach. We don't know what's wrong but—"

" _I understand, ma'am. Please remain calm."_

The woman on the other side is calm, very calm, and that gives Kosuke mixed feelings. One part of her is thankful for it, and the other part is demanding to know how the woman isn't freaking out as much as she is.

Minami has become a ghost in the corner of the room, and Okina is hovering over Hitsuji while Kosuke answers every question.

" _What has he eaten?"_

"Just dinner, I think. I'm trying to ask but he won't talk."

" _Is he running a fever?"_

Hitsuji tries to reel back from her, so Kosuke has to basically pin him down palm-to-forehead. "No, it doesn't feel like it."

" _Does he have an appetite?"_

"Kosuke."

"We can't even get him to drink water."

"Kosuke."

" _Alright, I'm going to give you some instructions."_

"Kosuke."

"Do you have any idea what's wrong with him? I can't—"

" _Kosuke."_

She whips around, almost expecting Hitsuji to be a heap on the floor, only to see that he isn't anywhere near the sofa. Rather, he's found the puzzle on the table on the other side of the room. He has a piece in hand and was looking around very intensely for where to put it.

"Ma'am, he seems to be fine now. Thank you." She hangs up.

Hitsuji does drink a glass of water when offered to him. Okina tells Kosuke that she had noticed him eating quite a bit of the takeout they'd ordered, but had just marked it up to a big appetite. Asking Hitsuji one more time what he ate answers the question once and for all. He goes to his little backpack of toys and pulls out a torn and empty packet of silica balls.

Everyone heaves a sigh in relief when the whole thing ends with a simple burp and a request for more water. Then Kosuke just about football-tackles her baby brother when he looks for more silica in the packet.

Oh, she will be able to laugh about it later. Just not now. It doesn't matter that it was just a little belly trouble that got solved within thirty minutes. It could have even been less than that, and Kosuke would have been just as scared, because she only had two family members left. Only two, and they both depended on her, and she can't lose either of them, she _can't_ lose either of them and have it be her fault.

Okina takes the blame for all the trouble, but Kosuke takes it right back from her. Hitsuji is a picky eater just like every other kid his age, but when he has a food that he liked, he will stuff it away like a black hole. She should have warned her.

After that, the three of them just linger around Okina's house until her parents return home. Mai comments on the smell of lemon cleaner just barely covering up putrid vomit, and nearly faints when she's told what has happened. Kosuke is offered the takeout that they haven't eaten, and though she does take it for later, the sight of food alone roils her belly too much at the moment.

Kohta leaves before she does, with a mumbled goodnight-and-take-care-of-yourself and a brief hug. He goes without turning to look back. When Kosuke and the children leave not long after, Okina looks like she wants to ask something, but in the end she just bids them all a good evening.

The kids go to bed easily enough that night, and Kosuke once again sits between them. As she does so, she realizes two things:

_This is going to be even harder than she imagined._

_She cannot let these children out of her sight._

Kosuke sighs loud enough that she worries about waking both of them. _Keep going and be strong._

* * *

It is roughly two weeks later that she and Kohta break up.

Kosuke saw it coming from a mile away, so it does not hit her full-force like it would have. It comes and goes like a bad storm.

It's been far too long since they last shared a genuine smile. They haven't kissed since that one time weeks ago, and just about every other physical contact between them has been stiff and fleeting. Throw that on top of their conversations turning into those awkward wish-I-wasn't here chats, and it was an inevitability.

Such an inevitability, in fact, that it's a bit of a surprise that they still even have to talk about it. After a long day of grocery shopping and the first round of paperwork and reading, Kosuke is in the middle of loading the fridge with more microwavable meals—which she has just realized was a problem, but a problem that will flourish into something else later—when there is a knock on the door.

It's Kohta, and the look on his face alone tells her what they're about to discuss.

"Hey, Minami?" She calls up the stairs. "Kohta and I need to talk about something. You and Hitsuji stay upstairs, okay?"

She gets a distant "okay", and can just barely hear Minami telling her brother not to go downstairs. Kosuke doubts he understands why, but whatever.

She and Kohta take a seat at the only dining table they haven't pushed up against the walls. Kosuke guesses that The Lily Bowl's dining room is to forevermore be abandoned. The chairs are stacked away, the windows are almost always closed to get privacy from passerby, and the floor that once had hundreds of feet walking across it every day now serves as home to Hitsuji and Minami's toys. Even now, two coloring books and a great array of crayons is spread across the middle of the room.

Kohta does not immediately say anything, not that Kosuke can blame him. It ian't like he was dropping a bomb, more like he was confessing a secret. Kosuke doesn't know what to say; she just waits.

"I'm…going to need to head to Oshimi pretty soon," he tells her at last. " _Stay_ a little while, I mean. I've been putting it off, but…you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"And…" Kohta rubs at the back of his neck. His green eyes flicker down to the floorboards. "We…"

Ten full seconds of him failing to form proper words, and Kosuke decides she's going to have to do this herself.

"You don't have to say it."

A slow, shaky breath escapes him. Somewhere upstairs, something or another thumps on the floor. The muffled giggles that follow somehow make everything tenser instead of less. It's not just a reminder that they aren't really alone, but that this conversation isn't the most important thing in her world.

"Kosuke, listen." He raises his hands in a hopeless kind of gesture. "It's not that I want to—hurt you, or anything…"

"Kohta, come on. I know that. You don't have to apologize for anything."

"Don't I, though?"

Kosuke chews on her lip for a second. Footsteps start padding down the stairs, pause, and retreat back upwards. Kosuke would usually laugh at the inaudible "oh, wait" Minami or Hitsuji just gave, if it weren't for…literally everything else.

"Should've done this before," she murmurs.

Kohta's mouth twists like he's in pain. A hand reaches up and scratches above his brow, then drags down his face. "I—I know. I just…God, Kosuke, you know how much I suck at saying what I mean! I tried to, I did, but…"

"You should have said something," Kosuke says, "but I should have, too. I knew what you wanted to say, and I just swept it under the rug. Didn't want to face it."

"So…You know this isn't just coming now, right? I really didn't want to do this so soon after—everything, but you know what I said. All the cancelled plans, and the calling in sick, I wasn't sure if you could—"

"Kohta, I know why this is happening, but could you just…not say it? I'm not mad and I'm not blaming you, so please just—Don't."

Kohta nods, swallowing thickly. Kosuke rubs beneath her eye, and realizes that she isn't even anywhere near crying. She doesn't know whether this should unnerve her or not. Maybe she's just cried herself out by now.

In any case, the conversation just seems too short. Everything is taken care of, but it still doesn't feel right. She should be more upset about this. At the least, she should be saying more.

"I'm sorry this didn't work," is what she settles on. "I should've tried more."

"It's fine," he says. Then again, "It's fine."

She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a whoosh. "Take care of yourself at Oshimi, yeah?"

"I think I should be telling you that," he answers readily enough. He's smiling, at least a little bit.

Kosuke scoffs and flicks her hand at him, joking. "Nah. I'll be fine."

She will be, eventually. Of that she is sure. Just because this is happening doesn't mean anything is going to be different; it's just a slight change in schedule, that's all. Maybe a quick explanation to her siblings and Okina, answering the inevitable "What happened to you and Kohta?" questions. Nothing that will ruin her life.

Kohta stays for a little while longer, and the two of them exchange meaningless chit-chat. Somehow, their post-breakup chatter is less awkward than the pre-breakup chatter—not enlightening conversation, sure, but certainly better. Eventually the children cannot be confined upstairs any longer, and when Minami finally calls "Can we come down now?" the two of them wrap it up pretty quickly.

Kohta bids her goodbye, grants her one last light hug, and leaves. Not ten seconds later, Minami comes requesting a snack, and another thump upstairs that's just a little too hard has Kosuke checking up on Hitsuji—that was just how life is, it doesn't slow down to let drama sink in. Kosuke and her boyfriend breakup, he leaves forever, it's time to take care of the kids. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Of course, things just can't be that painlessly simple, can they? No, the amount of times "It's fine" resounds in Kosuke's mind apparently did not matter.

It isn't until that night's dinner (once again ramen, not at all bad, but served so many times in the past month alone that Hitsuji and Minami both deflated at the sight) that Kosuke finally understands the weight of what's happened. Maybe "weight" was the wrong word. "Meaning"?

Two years ago, she'd stopped a guy who she'd seen before but never talked to from leaving his books behind in the classroom. He did it again two days later, and she stopped him again with a quip at his memory. The third time three days later, she asked if he wanted a note. The fourth time the very next day, she gave him his book, turned him around, and slapped a sticky note on his backpack reading "REMEMBER YOUR BOOKS!"

After that, a combination of them talking to each other outside of class, sitting together at the cafeteria, him introducing her to his friends, _and_ still leaving his books gave her the impression that they were at least friends. A day in the gym, a volleyball _bomping_ against her head, and Kohta tearing the already-apologetic thrower of said ball to shreds gave her the impression that maybe he liked her a little more. By this point, Kosuke had already found herself admiring the softness of his hair, the little snort he did whenever he laughed, and the way he gave his complete and utter attention when anyone spoke to him. As Okina herself had said, it was Kosuke who made the first move, asking him if he wanted to go hang out specifically alone.

One date became another and another and another. Kohta introduced her as _my girlfriend_ and Kosuke introduced him as _my boyfriend._ Jet just about lost his voice laughing when he found out, and it took a punch to the gut from Kosuke and Kohta both to shut him up. They exchanged gifts on Valentine's Day and White Day. They went to one another's birthday celebrations. The first snowfall after they made it official, he had insisted on walking her home in the weather, and Kosuke initiated the fight with the first flying snowball. He bumped into a tree and got showered in a snowy downfall, and once she was done laughing at him, Kosuke initiated their first kiss— _her_ first kiss—too.

True, he had never spent too much time at her house, and neither she at his, but they were happy enough. "I love you" was a rare phrase but Kosuke knew they both meant it.

That happy, lovey-dovey, comforting relationship is not only over now, it had all been for nothing. Their first kiss had been for nothing. The "I love you's" had been for nothing. Any conversation they had about their future had not only been for nothing, they could no longer be remembered without being painfully aware of the irony of every word.

It's her fault. That is really the cherry on top of the cake, the one last "Ha-ha!" Their split had been mutual, sure, but mutual on the fact that it was her that was the problem. Kosuke knows she hadn't "led Kohta on", but she doesn't know what else to call it. She'd asked him out under the false pretense that she was starting something and was going to go through with it. Every time she promised that she wouldn't miss something again, or that she'd try a little harder, those were all just lies after lies after lies dressed up in hugs and kisses.

Kosuke doesn't even know what she's upset about. That she had wasted so much time on nothing? That three years' worth of memories were permanently soured, on top of each and every memory she had of her parents? That she'd done some kind of irreversible damage to Kohta, had given him reason to suspect each and every girl that he felt affection for after? That there was _going to be_ more girls for him, but she couldn't imagine any other boys for her? That even though all Kohta could have done for her these past weeks was offer her his comfort, she appreciated that comfort so much she didn't know what she was going to do without it?

Kosuke manages not to cry—again, probably because she'd cried herself out long ago. Still, after she sets the last bowl into the dishwasher rack, she presses her hands to her forehead and leans heavily against the counter. She's hardly even thinking about anything. Even after it occurs to her that it's time to get back to work on everything else, she just puts it off.

A sudden weight twining around her leg has her flinching so hard it hurts. But it's only Minami, her little arms wrapped around Kosuke's leg, almost leaning against her. She isn't even looking up at Kosuke, just staring down at the floorboards with eyes that are wide and thoughtful.

Maybe she thinks Kosuke's stressed out over her work, or that she's suffering yet another bout of grief. Maybe she has even pieced together that Kohta's visit is his last. Whatever it is, she doesn't say anything about it.

Kosuke reaches down and brushes her sister's hair back from her face, and once again wonders when it got so long and curly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Thanks for all the views so far, it means so much :) I wanted to say a few things here in the notes real quick.
> 
> First, the seven beginning chapters of this fic are going to be dedicated to Kosuke's background and her situation at the start of the plot. Kosuke's an OC, so I wanted to take some time to flesh her out and establish her character before we get to the canon characters.
> 
> Second, Kyoya will be making his appearance in chapter eight, and the plot proper begins shortly after :)
> 
> Third, the age of adulthood in Japan as of right now is 20, but we're going to pretend this takes place in a Japan where the legal age is 18. 
> 
> Thank you very much, and enjoy!


	5. Law of Balance

It is two months after her parents have died and her world has changed forever that Kosuke realizes that she has _got_ to do something about their food situation.

Eighty percent of the time, she, Hitsuji, and Minami are running on cereal, microwavable dinners, and a whole lot of ramen. Frozen gyoza, frozen fried chicken, frozen grilled riceballs, and even the occasional frozen spaghetti with meat sauce are not in and of themselves bad. Kosuke even liked them some time ago. But night after night of eating them, you start to notice how soggy they are, the crunchy bits that shouldn't be crunchy, the vague taste of something chemical. It's getting so bad that Hitsuji and Minami are getting dangerously close to having tantrums about it—and Minami herself seems to finally be reigning in her behavior for her older sister's sake.

Turns out, buying microwaveable food actually costs a _lot_ more than just making it yourself. A _lot,_ lot more. By her calculations, they'll probably be spending around ￥63,000 a month. Then throw in another couple hundred in snacks alone! Which will never do well for them in the long run, considering…everything.

So it's time.

To cook.

_Hoo boy._

"Why are we going to the supermarket?" Minami asks her just about the second they walk out of the house. Hitsuji is already darting ahead, just a little too far for Kosuke's liking but maybe not that dangerous, she doesn't know. "The supermarket's where you get food."

"Yes, it is."

Kosuke makes sure the door's locked behind her and that the now-permanent sign declaring that The Lily Bowl is out of business is still upright. When she turns around, Hitsuji has stopped to fiddle with the lock on the gate of their fence, like it's the most entrancing thing he's ever seen. Minami has stopped with a look of deep concentration. Kosuke can see math equations bouncing around in her head.

"We're going to go get food?" Minami asks, just to be sure.

"Yee-up. Come on, time's a-wastin."

Minami complies, but as the three of them continue on their way, she pats Kosuke's hip to tell her, "I'm sorry for complaining about ramen last night. I didn't mean it. I like ramen."

"We all like ramen, Minami. Doesn't mean we're not all sick to death of it at this point."

"Yeah, but…" Minami huffs like she's frustrated at her own inability to speak. "I'm not always hungry, so maybe I can just not eat sometimes…"

"Minami." Kosuke almost pulls them to a stop, but Hitsuji's determination to keep charging forward keeps them walking. She keeps an eye on him while giving Minami her attention at the same time. "We're not eating ramen again and you're not going to skip meals. Come on, it's not that big of a deal."

Minami waits for a second. "…Do I have to eat it?"

"You have to try it."

"Do I have to like it?"

" _No,_ but you have to _try_ it."

"Okay." Minami kicks at a rock. "That's fair."

The supermarket is a good thirty-minute walk from their house, and with the summer heat, the only way to satiate Hitsuji and Minami both is a popsicle for each of them. Both of them are happy to help her find the best green onions and seaweed. They have a debate on which chicken they should get, and then when it's time to get eggs, they all have a very intense discussion on whether the chicken or the egg came first, and somehow Hitsuji wins. Even that is rendered useless when they don't even _get_ chicken. Everything they get is just a little cheaper since it's the end of the day—an old trick Kosuke remembers her mother using quite often.

They get back home, and Kosuke gets to work. She sets out all of her ingredients. Washes her hands with hot water and soap for thirty seconds, twice. Pins her hair—which has begun to lose its dye so that some of her natural blonde is starting to peek at her scalp—back in a ponytail.

The tonkatsu would come first. She gets her three pork chops, slices them just so, seasons them with salt and pepper. Coats them with flour, dips them in eggs, covers them in panko crumbs. Next comes the deep-frying, which scares her only half to death. After the first two, she more or less just throws the last one in grenade-style, running away to avoid the splash of hot oil that follows.

She works stirring the bonito flakes in bubbling water. The recipe book that she's following to the last punctuation says 1-2 minutes, but she lets them simmer for three. Once the pork is golden-brown, she takes them out.

"Easy as pie," she says aloud, then regrets it because the last time she tried to make a pie she set the fire alarm off.

She cracks the stove up to a medium heat and only then notices Hitsuji and Minami standing in the doorway. They're staring at her silently. Minami is holding the phone and Hitsuji has a pail of water that is already dripping on the floor.

"Is everything okay?" she asks them.

Minami holds up the phone. "I know how to call the fire department if we need to."

Hitsuji holds up his pail. "I got water for the fire!"

Kosuke purses her lips and sighs through her nose, but she's not annoyed. She gets it. She's not her parents; she's not a chef. She's never done this before, and her siblings are still getting used to all these changes she's going through. This is kind of like someone who's only ever rode a bicycle deciding to drive a city bus.

"We aren't going to need either of those, but thank you," she says as she gets the pan on the heat. "And I'm very happy you know how to call the fire department, Minami. Good girl."

Hitsuji huffs unhappily and lifts up his pail. Droplets hit the floor. "I got water for the fire!"

"There's no fire. But the flowers outside are probably _very_ thirsty."

Hitsuji takes this mission with the gusto of a hero, but Minami takes a second to very pointedly set the phone on the counter before following.

The Dashi, soy sauce, sugar, sake, and mirin all go into the pan and boil. Again, Kosuke looks at the recipe book and pauses. She's definitely going to need more than three teaspoons of soy sauce. Six tablespoons of sake seems like too much. She makes adjustments. No big deal. All good. All good.

The Tonkatsu goes into the sauce, eggs get beaten in a bowl, and they go over on top. She covers all of it to let it cook for just a minute. Again, not in the recipe, but she figures hey, why not a little bit of green onion?

She's already got rice made—thank goodness she's not so bad to screw _that_ up—and it all goes on top. Then a little bit of Nori on top. Not in the recipe, but…

But…

Oh no.

What has she done?

Kosuke looks at the three bowls of katsudon in front of her. They look good. They smell good. But she didn't follow the recipe. They look too different from the pictures in the book. She'd made things up for no reason besides "eh, sure."

 _These probably taste horrible,_ she thinks, quickly followed by, _They taste horrible. They definitely taste horrible. I can't feed these to my babies._

Wouldn't you know, right on time, Hitsuji comes padding back into the kitchen. The bottoms of his shorts are soaked and the pail he's still holding is empty. Clearly more water was involved and Kosuke is worried that the flowers have been effectively drowned.

"I'm hungry," he announces loud and clear.

Kosuke takes a glance up at the fridge, where there are still a few more frozen dinners. She looks down at the katsudon, probably disgusting but not frozen. Fridge. Katsudon. Fridge. Katsudon. Fridge? Katsudon?

She picks up the two bowls. "Go get Minami and we'll eat."

So they all sit down at the table, Kosuke sets the bowls in front of all of them, and there is silence. Just about the second his hits the table, Hitsuji has picked up his chopsticks and flips a slice of tonkatsu over.

"Tonasoo?" he asks.

"Tonkatsu," Kosuke confirms. She sets her and Minami's cups of tea and Hitsuji's water before him.

"Poark?"

"Pork."

Minami is staring at her bowl with clear apprehension, and Kosuke can't even be mad because she's doing the same thing. They're probably sharing the same thoughts: miso soup as salty as the ocean, gyoza fried to charcoal, omurice mud-brown and drowned in ketchup. Bad memories. Nightmares. Tears.

Kosuke picks up a piece of tonkatsu and pauses, because her tongue is curling in her mouth. She can already taste the overpowering salt, the bitterness, the chalkiness. She imagines biting into it and her mouth being flooded with oil. She's scared. She has made a mistake.

 _Be strong,_ she tells herself once again, and lifts it up and away from the bowl, closer to her mouth.

"Do we have more?"

Minami's voice stops her own hand. She's spoken through a mouthful and only swallows after she's done, chopsticks still in the bowl and a crumb of bread on her lip.

"What?" Kosuke asks dumbly.

"Do we have more?" Minami asks again, but then she reaches for the soy sauce and drips just a bit over her rice. She takes a bite, makes an urgent sound, and just barely manages to say "Nevermind" before she's shoving another bite into her mouth.

Hitsuji scoots his bowl forward. Every piece of tonkatsu is missing, leaving nothing but bare white rice behind. "Can I have more poark?"

Kosuke takes two pieces out of her own bowl and transfers them over. Hitsuji instantly takes far too big of a bite, and Kosuke looks down at her own bowl one more time. It has to be not-bad, right? Because the kids are eating it. Unless they are just pretending. No, Hitsuji is too brutally honest to pretend.

She finally takes a bite of pork, chews, and stops.

It's good.

It's actually pretty good.

 _Alright,_ Kosuke thinks as she takes another bite, smiling, _Not bad. You can make this again._

The rest of the meal goes nicely. Hitsuji asks for more "poark", but with none left, Kosuke tells him to eat his rice. Hitsuji isn't happy. Minami encourages him. He likes it. Kosuke and Minami wash the dishes after. Minami almost drops a bowl, and in her hurry to catch it, Kosuke literally falls over for nothing. They both laugh about it afterward.

The three of them play games and pretend and dress-up, and then it's time to go to bed. Kosuke returns to the menial task of paperwork, and she feels good about it. At least for now, they don't have to worry about going hungry. She knows how to cook katsudon; she can figure out other dishes in the future.

She finishes the paperwork early and spends the rest of her time reading the recipe book like a novel.

* * *

Kosuke turns out to be—in Okina's own words—a flabbergastingly good cook.

After the katsudon, she makes gyoza. After that, motsunabe. After that, tonjiru.

For once, Okina comes to _their_ house to eat dinner, and spends just about every moment leading up to it staring around narrow-eyed and slackjawed like she still can't grasp what's happening. They just watch her, smug as can be, as a steaming bowl of the soup is pushed towards her. It smells good and she still doesn't believe it. Hitsuji slurps his down like his life depends on it and she doesn't believe it.

She takes a sip, believes it, and makes it known with a soft but sincere whisper of _"Oh my god."_

Kosuke tries to be as humble as she can, but she can't deny that she just feels prideful for the first time in…ever. Hitsuji and Minami asking for seconds feels good. The Henkas taking her thank-you gift of kakuni and literally gasping at the sight feels good. Making takoyaki for a party at Minami's class, thinking they taste pretty alright, and Minami coming home and saying that her teacher is asking for Kosuke's recipe feels good.

But it's more than just that, because Kosuke actually really, really _loves_ cooking.

Maybe it's just because she likes food, or maybe there's some deeper, appreciating-the-fruits-of-your-labor meaning behind it, but she just can't deny that she looks forward to doing it each and every time. Not everything she makes is perfect, of course, especially not at the beginning. There are dishes that are too salty, a bit overcooked, a bit _under_ cooked. Even the mistakes make her happy, though, because it just tells her what to do next time.

She figures she was so bad at it before because she just didn't pay much attention. She let things simmer and forgot about them, or guesstimated instead of actually measuring. Or maybe it's like Marti used to say, that if someone doesn't want to cook something, you end up tasting it.

They have three recipe books not counting Emiko and Marti's old sweat-blood-and-tears catalog made only for them. Kosuke reads them all almost religiously and fills the white spaces with notes and suggestions. She marks out quantities and replaces them. If she's not doing this, she's reading how-to guides she finds on the dollar rack at the grocery store. There are magazines that only have a page or not even that much about cooking trends and news, and she'll stop on her grocery runs just to read them.

Now, there is a downside to this, like some kind of law of balance.

Kosuke is a good, maybe even great, cook.

She is an _awful_ baker.

She doesn't sugarcoat it—no pun intended. Her hands poison anything sweet like a curse. The first time she makes anpan, Minami and Hitsuji take one bite apiece before all but begging not to eat more. She writes that off as a fluke at first. Afterwards, she attempts to make amanattō, dango, and higashi. The first turns out hard as rocks, the second turns out black as night, and the third end up so dry that Kosuke has to drink three cups of water after just to get her tastebuds working again. Just out of curiosity, she tries to make simple sugar cookies. She doesn't even know _what_ happened with this one, just that they are all on the tray when they go in the oven, and all gone when she checks again.

Kosuke tries not to let it bother her. Okina and Minami try to be gently discouraging, and Hitsuji bluntly asks her to just stop. She concedes in the end, because they don't really need sweets to survive. Besides, she doesn't have nearly as much of a sweet tooth as she used to. Considering how much sugar she'd consumed in the past few years, she wouldn't be surprised if her body could go for the rest of her life without it.

It takes her a while before she's brave enough to try one of her parents' recipes.

She settles on the lemon-pepper chicken Marti was most known for. It's not Japanese, but everyone had loved it. Still, trying to match her stepfather's old carving techniques, reading his faded handwriting, hearing his voice in her head…It feels weird.

Kosuke doesn't tell Hitsuji or Minami beforehand, and she kind of regrets it. Hitsuji becomes ecstatic at once—the lemon-pepper chicken was the only thing remotely acidic that he liked—and chomps down at once. Minami sees what it is and doesn't speak a word for the rest of the meal. Afterwards, she tells Kosuke that it was really good and goes to her and Hitsuji's room.

Whether or not it tastes the way Marti used to make it, Kosuke doesn't know. She likes to think so, but at the same time, her stepfather was just so much of a master at what he did that she doesn't like to compare it.

She fishes out her mother's old recipe for strawberry shortcake and tries to make it the next day while the children are at school. She follows everything to the last word, to the very last stroke of her mother's pen. She's focusing so hard that she doesn't hear a would-be customer knocking on the door until they've been doing so for five minutes.

In the end, the shortcake is lumpy, the cream is like goo, and even the strawberries are ruined by sugar gritting in her teeth like sand with every bite.

It upsets her this time, because she _wanted_ to do it like Emiko. If Marti were here, he'd be happy with her imitation of his dish. Even if it didn't taste just the same, he would have liked it and gave her a hug and a "Great job!"

But if Emiko saw _this?_ Baking was her mother's highest passion apart from her husband and family. She started it when she wasn't even a teenager and perfected it more and more every day for years on end. If she saw her daughter absolutely failing at each and every tiniest attempt at it—after "calling in lazy" for just about every physical education class, hearing her and her boyfriend fight time and again about her failing to show up to his soccer games because she slept five hours in, never taking anything besides sleep seriously—Kosuke can't even imagine what she'd say.

At first, Kosuke figures that she'd settle for a passive-aggressive "At least you tried".

Later, as she dumps the failed shortcake into the garbage, she realizes that no, Emiko would have been so, _so_ happy that she was trying. She'd probably offer to help her try again, and if that failed, too, she would promise that they'd figure it out.

Kosuke can't even explain her thought process after this. First, she gets angry at herself for giving her mother so little credit. Then she feels safe with the reminder that Emiko loved her, she loved her so much, and that she just wanted to know she'd be alright on her own. Then she feels hollow when she realizes that Emiko probably died worried that Kosuke wouldn't be.

When Hitsuji asks her why she looks so sad when she picks him up, she just tells him that she tried to make a cake and it failed. He again asks her to just stop, and she agrees. She doesn't tell him that that failed cake was the reason that she was late, because she couldn't go outside until she's stopped crying and her face wasn't flushed, because…

Well, that just sounded stupid, didn't it?

* * *

It's almost four months after her parents had died, two months since Kohta left, and a few weeks after she'd started cooking that Okina drops a bombshell on her.

"Dad's promotion is making us move to Wakayama. It's…eight hours away."

Seneca was about two hours away from Karuizawa, in Ina. With her father's higher pay, Okina can easily afford to fly or take a train to and from Seneca and her new home on the holidays and occasionally the weekends. On the holidays, the Henkas like to go on vacation. On the weekends, taking those extra hours just to see Kosuke, between all the studying and seeing her family—it would all be too complicated.

They will be leaving in a week.

Kosuke's best and only friend is leaving in a week.

"Kosuke, I'm sorry," Okina all but begs her, even though Kosuke hasn't said a word yet. "I'm so, so sorry. We tried to figure it out, but there just isn't…There's nothing we can do!"

"It's

_**It's not fine.** _

fine, Okina. This is just something you have to do. You don't have any control over this."

Okina nods like she knows that, but there are still deep, despaired creases in the delicate features of her face. It's the weekend, and Okina has already taken the many bus transfers to make it to Karuizawa to see her. The Henkas are watching over Minami and Hitsuji while the two of them spend the day together. It's the first time since her parents have died that the two of them have hung out one-on-one, and the only time the Henkas have ever offered to watch the children. Those should have been red flags.

The summer heat is powerful. They're both in shorts and T-shirts. The dye in Kosuke's hair has faded even more, and both she and Okina have their hair tied back. Okina's hair is long enough to be in a ponytail but short enough that it's just a tuft.

Kosuke feels young, for some reason. She feels thirteen years old. That was when her hair was still blonde and her care-about-nothing attitude was just beginning to set in. Okina's hair had been the color of honey, Kosuke's closer to platinum, and more than once they'd been assumed as sisters. After she dyed her hair, that never happened again.

God, how long had they known each other? Since they were eight, right? Ten years. She's spent _ten. years._ with Okina. Twenty birthdays. Ten Christmases. Ten Halloweens. Countless ballet performances. Every homework assignment and class project.

As always, Kosuke struggles to process everything right away. As soon as the words left Okina's mouth, she felt her stomach drop. They had stopped walking. She isn't crying yet, though. Not yet.

Okina takes a deep breath. Somewhere out in the forest, a bird chips, very loud in the otherwise silence. "I'll call and text you whenever I can. Cross my heart, hope to die, I will. I could maybe even get you guys tickets so you could come visit us sometime! That would be good, wouldn't it?"

She's smiling, and it's so hopeful Kosuke can only nod, smile back, and say "Yeah", because that does not sound good at all. Hitsuji on an airplane? Leaving them with the Henkas while the two of them hang out? All six of them in the same house, two of them children, one of them a studying college student? Not happening.

They finally keep walking down the trail after that. It's getting hotter and Kosuke regrets not bringing any water along for this trip. The back of her neck is starting to feel sticky.

"This is so weird," Okina says after a while.

"What is?"

"Everything! I'm moving away from the only place I've ever lived. I'm not going to see you as often anymore. You and Kohta aren't together anymore, and y—" Okina freezes for just a moment. Her face is blue with horror. "I can't believe what I'm saying. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. I know what you mean." Kosuke takes a deep, warm breath of her own. "God, I can't believe it's only been four months. I don't even remember what our classrooms looked like. I don't even remember who our class president was!"

"It was Suzu." Okina's voice has lost confidence when she adds, "It was Suzu, right?"

"I don't know! I hardly even remember what Candy Juice tastes like anymore. I hardly recognize my bedroom; I hardly recognize myself. Look at me, Okina!" Kosuke reaches over and shakes her best friend's shoulders. "I haven't slept in for months! _Months!_ Who am I?!"

"That's what the rest of us have been thinking. Not to be mean, or anything, you're just really—different now, I guess. You know, the other day, Jet actually came by my house to pick up a book he lent me before school ended, and I gave him one of those gyoza you made me. You know what he did when I said you made them?"

"Laughed?"

"Honked."

Kosuke can't help but chuckle a little. Even though she isn't proud of how she was before—and that is putting it likely, she often cringes just thinking about it—she can admit to the humor of it. If dainty, polite Okina decided to join a grunge band and ditch ballet for professional wrestling, she'd be in everyone else's shoes.

Hey, you remember that lazy girl who was in our class? Yeah, the one who ate ten bags of gummy bears in one sitting that one time? She's basically raising two kids now. Hilarious, right?

For just a second, Kosuke considers asking about Kohta. Not because Okina would have kept up with him, but if she'd talked to Jet, maybe he had. The thought goes as soon as it comes, because she can't worry about Kohta anymore. She does still care about him, she supposes, and she certainly doesn't want anything to happen to him. Still, hearing that he's doing great would somehow be just as bad as hearing that he was doing poorly, so she decides not to bring him up.

On top of that, Kohta isn't important right now, Okina is. She only has one week left; Kosuke has to just sweep everything under the rug right now.

"Yeah, well," Kosuke finally replies, "Jet himself could tell me he won the Nobel Prize and I'd have a good honk myself."

Okina giggles in agreement. "He's not exactly one to be judging, is he?"

"What was that question he asked in history that one time?" Kosuke snaps her fingers together, but it's not helping at all. "We were looking at those old photographs, and he said something really bad."

"He asked if the world was actually black-and-white back then."

" _Yes._ I can't believe he asked that with a straight face."

"Didn't the teacher send him to the office because she thought he was joking?"

"Yeah, and honestly, why didn't he go with that? He spent two weeks after trying to defend himself. 'It's a legitimate question!'"

"Oh, that has nothing on that time he tried to sass the teacher and _crashed and burned."_

Kosuke puts on her most haughty boy voice she can. "'Ummm, teach? It's _Australia,_ not _Austria.'"_

By the time she's done, Okina is slapping at her arm to get her to stop, she's laughing so hard. Any chances they had of seeing wildlife are dashed, but they don't care at all. They're having fun, and Kosuke hasn't had fun in a while, bittersweet or otherwise.

Okina finally stops herself with a long sigh and a tear at the corner of her eye. "Oh, boy. I don't know if he'll make it through college."

"He's in college?"

The blunt, disbelieving way Kosuke says it makes Okina bark out a laugh once again. By this point, the end of the trail is not too far away. They'll either be heading home or continuing with their venture after this.

When Okina's face finally goes lax again, she says, "I really wish you could've gone to Seneca, Kosuke. You would like it—now, I mean."

Kosuke waves her off. She doesn't like to talk about college, not so much because it was a lost dream so much as the knowledge that she won't get a degree for a well-paying job bothers her. She'd actually wanted _not_ to go to college before, and now that wish had come bitterly true.

"Don't. There's no way I could go there now, not with Minami and Hitsuji."

"I know, but still. Seneca even had a culinary class you could have been in."

That _does_ sound very nice to Kosuke, yet another reason to stop talking about college. "Well, there's nothing I can really do about it now. Maybe when they're old enough, I can try somewhere."

Okina nods, still unhappy. She probably knows as well as Kosuke that that's a long, long ways away. If Kosuke is lucky, she can maybe get to college when she hits her late twenties—not horrifying in and of itself, but for someone who wanted to go when they were eighteen, a problem.

"Hey." Okina taps the side of her fist against Kosuke's arm. "You're strong, you know that?"

Kosuke gives her the best side-glare she can muster. "Okina, all I do is _carry the groceries._ I understand I couldn't lift an encyclopedia just a while ago, but I'd feel a lot better if you didn't freak out about it so much—"

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean you're strong in the _other_ way."

"Oh. Uh…Thank you?"

"Not a compliment. I just mean I know you're going to be okay. I was worried about you for a long time, and I guess I still am, but not as much."

Kosuke tries to take it as humbly as she can. She's happy that someone has confidence that she'll survive, but no so much when that someone is about to permanently separate herself from her life. Reassurance doesn't feel so good when it comes with a goodbye.

"Thanks. You're right. I'll be fine."

Okina grins warmly and pulls her in for a side-hug. Kosuke has to force down whatever bitterness is brewing inside her. She can't spend their last week together spending even more time drowning in her sorrows.

* * *

Minami and Hitsuji take the news better than they would have months ago. Before, Okina and the children may not have been as close as family, but she was someone they had both known for their whole lives. She'd always been nothing but kind to them, an older kid who was friendly without being related to them. She'd held both of them too many times to count.

Since Emiko and Marti had died, though, Okina has become synonymous with grief. Even putting aside those first few weeks of mourning, she only comes on the weekends now, not to hang out with their older sister and crack jokes and have fun, but to ask how they are and what need to be done.

With summer vacation looming close, Okina can't skip her last few weeks of class to stick around. She returns that same weekend, and while she's gone and the children are at school, Kosuke helps the Henkas pack away their things. It's always bittersweet, a mix of appreciated hard work and reminiscing the past.

Kosuke is helping with Okina's closet when she finds "Panjaboo", the stuffed monkey-like thing Okina had made in arts and crafts. It's just purple cloth stuffed with cotton with mismatched buttons for eyes. Kosuke always thought it was cute, Okina always thought it was creepy. Kosuke is happy to see him again, and with him being lost to the closet's abyss for so many years, Okina's mother tells her to keep it.

She does. She keeps it on her windowsill. On top of that, while they're rummaging through the garage, they find Okina's old bicycle. It's a faded red with a basket on the front, not like her new one, bright pink and sleek. Okina is the one who tells her to keep it, since Kosuke's legs are her only mode of transportation.

The Henkas leave the next Sunday, and all the Nakaharas turn out for the affair. Hitsuji is running around the empty house, Minami watches the boxes go to and fro with interest, the Henkas are bidding their goodbyes to old friends, and Kosuke's just standing around, doing whatever. Okina sticks with her as much as she can before she's pulled away for conversation.

Finally, it's getting late, and it's time for them to go. The moving trucks drive away with little fanfare. Final farewells are given. Mai tells Minami to be a good girl, Akinari tells Hitsuji to take care of his sisters, and both of them tell Kosuke to stay strong and call them if she ever needs them. Mai kisses her forehead and Akinari shakes her hand.

Okina hugs her tight enough to hurt, and Kosuke does the same. Much like she had done with Kohta, it's only then that she finally realizes the full weight of what's happening. She struggles to imagine life without Okina; she can but does not want to imagine a life with one more empty space. She already had three blank spots now, all recent and all painful.

This is another ending to another chapter, but it doesn't feel like the start of a new one. There will be no more no-lights days, no more after-school homework sessions, no more talking about their crushes and complaining about ballet practice. It is over and there will be no replacements, no epilogues.

She feels like she's about to cry, but only by the dry burn that takes up her face and throat. When Okina pulls back, Kosuke knows she sees it, because she spots it in her face, too. The bobbing throat and tight mouth.

"You'll be okay?" Okina asks her. She's not confident anymore.

"Yeah. Don't worry."

They hug one more time, the Henkas climb into their car, and they're gone.

They return home for supper. When Kosuke suggests they heat up some frozen dinners, neither Hitsuji nor Minami contests it.

* * *

Despite the promises, it doesn't take long for them to fall apart.

For a while, they text and call every day, every few hours. A girl in Okina's class twists her ankle during rehearsal. A picture Minami colored in class is now hanging up in the school hallway. Okina's final tests before summer vacation are killing her. Kosuke gloats about not having to do tests at all. Okina finally works up the nerve to talk to the guy she's been crushing on. Kosuke congratulates her on the new spine. Sometimes Minami and Hitsuji chime in with hello's.

Sometimes texts aren't answered right away and calls go to voicemail. It's an inevitability; there's no way they're both going to be available 24/7, especially not in their positions. Kosuke doesn't talk to Okina for a good three days so she can study.

Summer vacation comes. The children are let out of school, and Okina goes home to Wakayama. They make up for their lost time over the phone, but Okina and her parents travel all the way to Kagoshima to visit her grandparents. Kosuke spends her time watching over her siblings, taking them to the park most days, a children's fair at the local library, and for one "big thing", a movie at the theater.

Sometimes texts and calls are missed and not made up for. Rather, new conversations replace old ones and they go on without a mention of it. Good wishes, apologies, how-are-you, tell-them-I-said-hello. Chit chat and small talk.

Then there are days where they don't talk at all for no particular reason.

Days go to weeks. Once or twice they take a few minutes to talk.

And fewer and fewer they get, tapering off like a brush running out of paint.

It's no one's entire fault.

Okina stops making calls and trying to take them.

Kosuke stops sending texts and trying to answer them.

No reason, no bad blood. This is just the way life works. It doesn't matter how sad or unfair it sound from the outside; friends leave and move on with their lives. Ten years' worth of memories become just that, things that have come and gone, details blurring more and more with each passing day.

Kosuke takes it because it's not like she has any other option. She has to move on. She has to be strong and keep going.

Even as she thinks it to herself, she doesn't know whether it sounds too poignant or pretentious or not, but the simple fact of the matter is that she isn't the same person anymore. She is hardly the person that Okina had befriended for ten years. Listing every difference between the Kosuke of the present and the Kosuke that had offered to swap clothes with the girl on the field trip would produce a doorstopper of a list.

Maybe that's why she takes it better than she would before. Kosuke's perfectly capable of taking care of herself and her siblings now. She doesn't need to lean on someone as a crutch. She can do everything herself.

Does she want to? No.

Does she have to? Yes.

She's not happy and she doesn't even try to force a smile, but she welcomes the unwelcome loneliness, guilt and regret and all.

Of course, it's probably just easier because loss has become a familiar face to her.

Whatever.

She'll be fine.

She'll be fine.

She'll be fine.


	6. Kind Encounters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a face from canon emerges!

Kosuke does not like going into her parents’ room. She only does it when she has to. The shelves have collected dust and the blankets of the bed have not been turned for months. Emiko had started a book just a few days before she’d died, and she’d left it on the nightstand, back-up, a bookmark sticking from the top. There it still is months later. Kosuke doesn’t even know what the name is, she doesn’t want to move it.

Maybe it’s a little disrespectful, letting her parents’ room be unattended for so long. To Kosuke, doing anything to change it feels _more_ disrespectful. Obviously, Emiko isn’t going to be reading that book again, Marti isn’t going to be painting any other pictures anytime soon. That doesn’t make her feel okay touching any of it, though.

She _does_ try to keep up her father’s bonsai in good condition, however. It’s on her daily list of things to manage.

Even walking by the room makes her feel queasy. Minami and Hitsuji used to run into that room several times a day, playing games or trying to pull their parents from their work. There’s really no reason to do that anymore. Even Hitsuji, who loved to play in their when Emiko and Marti were both busy, carefully strays away from the door like he and Minami are both repelled by the knowledge that the room will be empty once they go in.

Kosuke doesn’t go into that room unless she really needs to.

Until the first August after her parents have passed away, due to a domino effect.

To put the story in ten steps:

  1. Minami is invited to another birthday party for one of her classmates.
  2. It is hot and—due to a rain just the day before—humid. The air is thick. Minami begins to not feel good.
  3. She very nearly vomits, and everyone goes into panic mode getting her juice and into the shade.
  4. Kosuke gets the phone call and comes to her sister’s rescue
  5. They return home on the bus.
  6. While the bus pulls away, Kosuke is about to set her sister down when she sees a car speeding like a bullet past them, not even trying to avoid the lake of muddy water at the side of the road.
  7. Kosuke panics and squeezes Minami to her while twisting her back to the car.
  8. The car passes.
  9. Minami gets out of it with slightly dampened feet.
  10. Kosuke gets out of it looking like she decided to make snow angels in a mud puddle.



“Kosuke,” Minami wails while the car is still zooming away. She sounds absolutely devastated, and when Kosuke sets her down, she doesn’t even back away an inch. Like Kosuke had just taken a bullet for her and not some muddy water. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“You didn’t do anything, Minami, it’s okay.” Kosuke tries to give her a reassuring smile, but it’s kind of hard to do that at the moment. The backs of her legs, bare in her shorts, have been splashed with thick brown water. Her shirt is soaked and clinging to her quite uncomfortably. The entire back part of her hair is now dripping with muck. It’s _gross._ “I’m alright.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again regardless. “Let’s go home so you can get clean. Please, let’s go home. I’ll help.”

Well, the mud dries to the point of turning dusty, and more than one person gives her pretty nasty looks as if she’s somehow slighted them by accidentally getting doused in mud from a whack driver with a death wish and it only occurs to her once they get back home that she’s probably not going to be making it to the grocery store that day, which isn’t the end of the world, but now she’s going to have to plan their dinner menu from scratch again and it’s still really hot and she ends up drenched in sweat on top of being muddy as a pig.

Point being, Kosuke’s in a pretty bad mood when she gets home.

Minami tries to help as promised, but all she can do is kind of wipe off her sister’s legs a bit before ushering her into the shower. Kosuke scrubs the mud off her skin and out of her hair until she’s practically as pink as a strawberry.

Her soiled clothes are going straight to the laundry, of course, but it isn’t until she’s done and wrapped up in a towel that Kosuke realizes she’s failed to bring a change of clothes. No big deal, of course; her bedroom is literally four feet outside the bathroom door.

As she opens the door, though, she sees that the door of her parents’ bedroom is cracked open just so. This confuses her because she’s sure that she always closes it shut whenever she leaves. Maybe Minami or Hitsuji had finally risked a visit inside…In any case, with only Minami in the house and downstairs, Kosuke doesn’t see any problem in walking over in her towel and shutting the door.

She goes to it, puts her hand on the knob, and almost closes it when she sees something that has really always been there but she’s only really noticing now:

A cardboard box in the corner of the room, stacked full of clothes.

She remembers that on the very morning Emiko and Marti had gone on _that one_ car ride, she’d told Marti she wasn’t interested in any of their clothes they were giving away. And sometime in the haze that followed, she had put the box back into their room. She’d had no idea what else to do with it.

Carefully avoiding looking at the book or the unfinished painting and basically everything else, Kosuke tiptoes over to the box and peeks inside.

The clothes are in two stacks, one clearly from Emiko and the other from Marti. Looking up at the closet, Kosuke sees that the rack is still lined with clothes, shoes still at the bottom, because…Yeah, why is she noticing this? Of course her parents’ clothes are still here.

She reaches into the box first and pulls out the first shirt she sees on top. It’s just a simple T-shirt, white and red striped. Beneath that is a pair of high-waisted denim shorts. After that, there are dresses and sweaters and pairs of jeans.

Kosuke can kind of remember seeing Emiko wearing the T-shirt. When Kosuke was younger, her mother seemed to prefer shorts and T-shirts above all other combinations. That was back when they lived in an apartment, not a house, and the much younger version of herself would be struck time and again by the fact that her mother was younger than other mothers. As she’d gotten older, Emiko’s taste seemed to start leaning more towards long-sleeved shirts and cardigans, though maybe she’d sported her old fashion every now and then.

In any case, the T-shirt is clearly a little older than Kosuke herself is. She can’t really explain how, she can just tell it’s pretty well-aged. From the eighties or nineties, probably. Same for the shorts. The shirt is soft but unwrinkled, and when Kosuke holds it closer, she can pick up a still-lingering stink of cigarette smoke.

Kosuke has dressed herself in them before she knows it, and it’s a process she doesn’t really remember doing. She looks down at herself and has mixed feelings. She’s never worn high-waisted pants before. It’s a feeling and look she’s not used to. Her legs poke out from the shorts, longer than she’d think, another reminder that she’s not fifteen anymore, not a student anymore.

The clothes smell and look and _feel_ like her mother, though. It’s not like trying to bake, where it was just a mock imitation of what her mother could do. This is like remembering her without trying to replicate her. It’s a nice feeling.

Minami seems to notice that it’s her mother’s clothes that Kosuke is wearing, and yet again, the little girl somehow decides that it’s better not to say anything. Kosuke doesn’t know where she gets that from. She’s only seven, a tiny little thing who still believes that hearts are heart-shaped and wonders if the light in the fridge go off or not when you close it. It’s not that she’s dumb, though, because she knows what is happening and how everything has changed. But how she got that tragic old wisdom to not say anything about it, that’s a mystery.

Kosuke knows it’s not really fair not to talk about it. Knowing that Minami is forcing her voice down and not being mature enough to make the push forward…That’s selfish, right? It’s selfish to just take the discomfort instead of trying to fix it.

Kosuke can be a selfish person, though. That’s why she doesn’t bring it up.

After that, she’s wearing her mother’s old clothes almost exclusively. High-waisted pants, shirts made of cotton, belts that go around the waist instead of the hips, patterned skirts, even the occasional pair of overalls. Her own clothes pop out of the closet every now and then but mostly hang up unused.

* * *

It’s September, and Kosuke realizes that it doesn’t matter how many books she reads, or planners she fills. There will always be something she won’t be prepared for and will need outside help.

Case en point: Hitsuji’s hair.

Hitsuji and Minami had both inherited their father’s thick chocolate-colored hair. Marti’s hair had been wavy, though. He’d kept it long, but handsomely so, long enough for him to pull it back from his face or comb through easily.

Hitsuji and Minami have curls and curls and curls. Even Marti himself would say once or twice that he had no idea where they came from, because it certainly wasn’t from Emiko. Minami’s hair is long, about down to her elbows, and they have to be so careful with it to avoid tangles and knots. A tangle in Kosuke’s hair is an easy fix. In Minami’s, it’s a painful nightmare.

Minami’s hair grows down and Hitsuji’s grows up. His curls stack upon his head like a crown. They couldn’t be tamed no matter what they did. Just before all this started, his locks were already begging for a trim. They were starting to fall into his eyes and fluff up when he laid his head down.

Kosuke tries putting a cap on him on a particularly sunny day and realizes that it isn’t going to fit. That’s when she decides they’re going to have to do something about it. She manages to get him wrangled into a seat, but doesn’t get a single snip in before deciding that yeah, no, she is not qualified to do this.

Two days later sees them making a walk to the hair salon, with a good bit of money in Kosuke’s wallet and a spring in Hitsuji’s step. Since Kosuke told him they were going to get his haircut there, he’d been excited as could be, bouncing around, telling anyone that would listen what was going to happen. Minami even gets jealous at once point and asks if she can get a haircut, too, but immediately decides that she really doesn’t want that. It’s enough just to come along.

When it’s time for Hitsuji to take his seat, Minami is once again at his heels for support. The chair goes high, high, high up just so he can be seen in the mirror. The stylist chuckles as the blanket swallows him up. Kosuke once again tells him to stay still, firmly this time, and he seems to uphold it. Minami taps him if he gets too fidgety.

Then the stylist lifts up the scissors, and he panics.

They all freeze as a sudden, high whine comes out of him, and he starts twisting around, _“No, no, no!”_

The stylist backs off, and Kosuke gently asks, “Buddy! Hey, what’s wrong?”

He points at her, looking far too betrayed for someone his age. “ _You’re_ supposed to cut my hair!”

“What, me?” He nods. “Hitsuji, no, that’s why we came here. We have to let someone else do it.”

“No, you!”

Hitsuji—misunderstanding child that he is—must have thought that for some reason, they had to go all the way to this new place, but that Kosuke was still going to be the one cutting his hair. It never even occurred to her that she would have to explain that.

“I can’t cut your hair, buddy.” She gestures to the stylist, who’s smiling a bit uncomfortably. “She has to do it.”

 _“No,”_ he almost wails. He starts making crying sounds without really shedding tears, but Kosuke knows that will happen soon enough. Minami is trying to calm him down, promising him that it’ll be okay and it still won’t hurt, but he keeps saying “No” like it will spare him from this horror.

Hitsuji has never had his hair cut by a stranger before. Emiko was terrified of cutting hair. She’d accidentally given herself a pixie cut in her younger years, and gave Kosuke a “jellyfish” not too long after. They’d relied on hair stylists—and even Kosuke will admit that the first time was scary for her, sitting still while a stranger snipped sharp scissors close to her head—until Marti had come along. Marti’s parents, before they had passed, were very busy people who could hardly spare time for haircuts, so he’d gotten the skill himself. He couldn’t style too drastically, probably couldn’t do bangs, but he was a master at trimming, and that’s really all they had ever needed.

He’d cut Hitsuji’s hair every single time. They would count every curl they cut until Hitsuji couldn’t count any higher. If a particularly long one was snipped off, he’d let Hitsuji hold it, and that one lock would almost always preoccupy him until he was done. Hitsuji never fretted when Marti was around. If Daddy was there, everything was okay.

This is another instance where Kosuke isn’t sure whether a hard no or a compromise would be more fitting. While Hitsuji continued to fuss and cry, she figured this could go two ways. She could tell him that the stylist had to cut his hair, and that was just how it was going to be, which could take hours just to convince him of, and he’d probably wail the whole time. Or she could make a promise of doing something good and fun afterwards, at the cost of maybe letting his refusal to cooperate be rewarded. Did that sound too strict? That sounded too strict.

Tears are starting to shed, Minami is getting desperate, and more than one other patron was starting to look aggrieved. A light bulb finally flickers over Kosuke’s crown.

She has to say his name over and over just to get him to listen, then she says, “If you get your hair cut, I’ll let her do mine, too.”

He hiccups for a good while, while Minami stares at her with a mix of confusion and wonder. When Hitsuji finally gets a hold of his voice, snot is starting to bubble out his nose and his face is all pink. “You’ll get your hair cut, too?”

“Mm-hm.” Kosuke pulls her hair down her shoulder, and holds it so her hand is just about chin-level. A good eight inches of hair, still holding the pale red sheen of dye, hangs past her palm. “This much!”

She can see the realization that _THAT’S A LOT OF HAIR_ occur to both Hitsuji and Minami then. Hitsuji blinks away the last of his tears and takes on a look of curiosity, like the idea alone of his sister with shorter hair outweighs his fear of a stranger with a pair of scissors by far. Minami’s brows are furrowed in a look that borders on horror.

“Kosuke, let me do it,” she suddenly says. “I’ll get my hair cut so you don’t have to.”

It’s sweet as sugar, but the little waver in her voice has Kosuke shaking her head. Minami’s hair has been as long as it is for basically her entire life. It’s a change she can’t even imagine.

“I’ll do it, Mina. Don’t you worry about it.”

So Hitsuji gets his hair trimmed with a minimal amount of fidgeting and almost no fussing. It’s only when the cold metal of the scissors brushes against his ear or his neck that he flinches, fair enough. Curls flutter down to the floor one by one. By the end, his mane has been tamed just a little bit more, and Kosuke finally gives him a cap to prove a job well done. Minami compliments him for how cute he looks.

Then it’s Kosuke’s turn, out of sheer luck that there wasn’t an appointment scheduled at the time. The stylist offers to dye her hair to its natural color, just to get rid of the almost pinkish sheen. Kosuke luckily has a picture on her phone to show what it used to look like, and it’s a process that doesn’t take horribly long, maybe around a half-hour. The kids entertain themselves with the coloring books.

Then it’s time for the cutting, and Kosuke steels herself. It’s not that she’s really attached to her hair. She wants it to look good, of course, but she’s never cried at haircuts, never freaked out at the idea of a drastic change. Still, it’s a _change,_ one she has only been prepared for for not even an hour.

Her hair is gathered in a ponytail, and _snip,_ it’s gone.

There’s a lot of trimming, head-turning, combing, brushing, leveling, and whatever else after that. The kids get a little more antsy and impatient, but other than Hitsuji needing some apple slices, they don’t interrupt.

Then, finally, the stylist declares that she’s done.

Kosuke looks at her reflection and doesn’t see red for the first time in years. Hair that had been a bright, rich scarlet—“candy red”, the boxes usually called it—was now a pale blonde, her natural color, not a trace of pink left. Before, her hair had been long enough to brush against her elbows, almost straight save for a slight wave, and she usually kept the top part tied back. Now it brushes against her shoulders, the wave more pronounced in its shortened length. The treatment makes it look fluffy and soft.

Kosuke likes it. She actually, really likes it.

“Kosu, you’re so preeettyyyyy!” Minami runs off the seat so she can touch it, feeling the newly cut locks between her fingers. Kosuke laughs when she just bunches it between her fists. “It looks so gooood!”

Hitsuji doesn’t say anything, probably because Kosuke’s hair has been red—well, his entire life, huh? He knew her hair wasn’t really red, he’d seen enough baby photos and been told plenty of times, but it was still a change. It’s like if Minami’s hair suddenly turned pin-straight; it just isn’t normal.

The haircuts and dye job cost a good bit, but it all works out fine. Kosuke finds that the shorter hair is easier to brush and she doesn’t have to use nearly as much shampoo and conditioner. It’s still just long enough to pull into a ponytail, albeit a tiny tufty one. She finds out that if she does a braid across the front and pins it to the side, she likes the way it looks very, very much.

It does take a while to get used to, though, and sometimes she’s still struck with the knowledge that she looks so drastically different. Long red hair and hoodies had become short blonde hair and blouses. Even more so than that, her body and build had gone through some changes. Before, though she’d always been petite and slender (chalk that up to a metabolism that had her pediatrician furrow his brows at her), there was no definition to her arms and legs, a bit of softness in the belly. Now, so much bicycle-riding, child-toting, and daily walking and given her some muscle. Not a lot, but enough to shape her legs just a bit, add a little definition to her waist. Her cheekbones seemed a little sharper, but that might have been the haircut. And stress.

“You look like Mommy,” Hitsuji tells her one day while they’re doing a puzzle.

“Thank you,” Kosuke agrees.

* * *

When September comes, the children return to school. Kosuke once again returns to long days with more time to do things, but more things to do. The children being busy for most of the day gives her more time to tidy up around the house. She can prep for dinner more and do little oddjobs, like mending clothes and whatnot. She fixes the basket on her bike and patches up a hole in a pair of shorts. She even gets free time every now and then to read, do puzzles, and other time-killing things.

She also manages to get herself a job, which was probably long overdue. It’s nothing major, of course. She wasn’t going to be a _doctor_ anytime soon, for crying out loud. She gets a job as a cashier at a nearby convenience store, minimum wage for taking money, giving money, putting things in bags, so on, so forth. She’s on her feet most of the day, but that isn’t new, is it? All she has to do is smile and nod, and though she does come across the occasional difficult customer, she’s dealt with more than enough to take it.

September 12th brings Hitsuji’s birthday, and he doesn’t really care all that much, but Minami is over the moon about it. She took one of the old chalkboards and set up a countdown on it in the dining room. Hitsuji’s been counting things an awful lot lately, and when he gets to five, Minami will proudly remind him that that’s how old he will be soon.

The party is in the park, and all Hitsuji’s daycare friends are invited. He gets new toys that he darts between, and Minami gifts him with a superhero costume she’d found at the store. The thing took a little chunk out of her piggy bank, so Kosuke helps by getting the separate mask and gloves. The day is spent in sunshine and laughter and all good things.

It’s nice. It’s fun. It feels almost normal, even though the other mothers bounce between awkward chitchat and ignoring her entirely. But that’s fine. Hitsuji comes over every now and then to brag about his gifts or ask her a question, just to keep her company.

Life just…keeps going. The children go to school. Kosuke goes to work. When the power goes out in storms, they do the No Lights routine. Kosuke makes them soup when they get sick. They go back to the park on lazy days. Kosuke helps Minami with her schoolwork. The kids cheer when she flips pancakes in the mornings. They set up a permanent tent in the backyard where they sometimes “camp out”. Hitsuji gets new shoes when he outgrows his old ones. They still have appointments with dentists and pediatricians and become well acquainted with the bus.

Life keeps going in a strange, disjointed way. There are now two parts of their lives, when their parents were there and when they aren’t. They are new characters in a new story. It is impossible to describe, but this is how things are now.

* * *

It wasn’t unusual to still get “customers”, even so long after the Lily Bowl shut down for good. Word of its closure had spread far enough, especially by the local newspaper. Still, the restaurant had featured in more than one travel brochure and website, which was as flattering as it was inconvenient.

They usually went away with apologies and such—one or two were miffed and took it out on her, not that she paid them much mind after—but they still came, however infrequent.

The kids were away at school, and Kosuke was up on the roof, trying to repair a leak. Fixing shingles wasn't nearly as hard as she thought it would be, but it was still a trial-and-error process. The skin of her hands was going pink and tender from the work.

She had a slow cooker of stew going in the kitchen, perfect for a day like today. A cold chill had swooped in and taken them all by surprise, and it'd been overcast since early that morning. Kosuke was starting to sniffle, and zipped up Marti's jacket up to her chin. It was the bomber-style one he'd offered her. It still stunk of paprika, but the sheepskin kept her warm.

Then, down below, someone knocked on the door and called, "Hello?"

Surprised, Kosuke sits up from her work, but she can't see who it is from where she sits. The edge of the roof cuts the road at a diagonal, and the most she sees of her front yard is the white wooden gate at the front. She calls, "Up here!"

The girl down below moves back until she sees the blonde atop the roof. She's bundled up in a thick leather jacket and had a knit cap, bright red, atop her head. Probably not much older than Kosuke.

"Oh! Uh—hi! Is this the Lily Bowl?"

"Yes—" Kosuke does her best to turn in her direction. It involves a lot of teetering on her knees. "—but we're out of business. I'm so sorry!"

She makes a gesture towards the sign, and the girl cranes her neck back to look. Only then does Kosuke see that the plaque reading _CLOSED INDEFINITELY_ has fallen from its place, so now the Lily Bowl's name is all that can be seen. The girl seems to get the point, though, and visibly deflates.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Didn't mean to bo-oh-ah- _ah-AH-CHOO!"_

Kosuke really, truly believes she almost falls from the roof from how hard the girl sneezes. Once upon a time, lightning had struck a tree fairly close to their home, and even _that_ hadn't had such a reverberation.

"Excuse me," the girl calls up in embarrassment.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah! My dad and I always get kind of sneezy in this weather, I was going to pick us up something from here. But don't worry abou-ou-ah- _ah-CHOO!"_

Kosuke slaps her hands over her ears for this one, and in the split second, she thinks of whether she would offer what she was thinking of offering. She doesn't do anything for any of the would-be customers, but she's never had one come to her doorstep while they were on death's doorstep, too.

 _Whatever,_ she figures, _there's more than I'll need, anyway._

"Hey, wait down there just a minute!"

She doesn't give the girl time to answer, just maneuvers her way down to the ladder she has on the front balcony. She hurries, but does not run, to get downstairs and open the front door. The girl in the front yard visibly melts in the gust of warm air that comes from within. Up close, Kosuke sees her nose is about as red as her hat. She hadn't thought it was this cold.

"Come on in," Kosuke tells her. "I might have something for you."

"Oh, no, no, no, don't worry ab-ah-AH—"

Kosuke closes the door, feels it through the wood, and opens it again after. The girl seems much more willing now.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. C'mon."

So she steps in, and Kosuke locks the door behind her so she can thaw out while she gets the stew. The slow cooker is just keeping it hot now, and it steams beautifully as Kosuke pours two helpings into two of the takeout bowls they still have leftover. She's been using them a lot, since it saves money from using the dishwasher, and is there any need not to?

The girl is huddling by the fireplace when she comes back—it's as good a day as any to have a fire going, Kosuke figures, and their stock of wood is great—and stands to attention.

"Thank you so, so much," she says as Kosuke hands the bowls over. Her voice is muffled behind the black scarf tied around her neck, tucked into her jacket. "I'm Haruhi Fujioka, by the way."

"Kosuke Nakahara. Nice to meet you."

"You, too." Haruhi looks around the room, as if estimating if it's real or not. The chairs stacked against the walls are starting to collect dust. The kids' latest crayon-and-marker masterpiece is still spread across the floor. The orange firelight makes the place look even emptier. "Has this place been out of business for long? I've been visiting Misuzu's pension for years and I only just learned of it…"

Misizu's—or "Isao", his real name—Sonoda was not the only pension owner in Karuizawa, but he is certainly one of the best. It isn't too close to the Lily Bowl, perhaps a thirty-minute walk, but it's close to one of the major shopping strips and is scenic to boot. Good pricing, good food, good lodging. Personally, Kosuke can't care less that the owner is a crossdresser, but others do, and even they put that aside for the hospitality.

"Just recently," Kosuke affirms, and embarrassed, she sweeps up the kids' picture and crayons. "My parents were the ones who ran this place. Why don't you go ahead and eat some stew? You look frozen."

Haruhi hadn't said anything behind her for a minute, but Kosuke heard the sound of the lid being popped off. The savory smell has her own stomach rumbling. Stew has been a good choice today.

"What do I owe you?"

"Nope." Kosuke shakes her head firmly. "Not taking anything. You didn't ask, I offered. No payment."

"But I can't juuuuu _uuuuuust…"_

This time her voice trails off into a whisper, so low Kosuke thought she was about to faint. Turning to her, though, Kosuke sees that she's still on her own two feet, but is as still as stone. She has a spoon sticking out from her lips.

Her eyes are almost too starry to look at.

" _This is the best stew I've ever had…"_

Kosuke heaves a sigh of relief. She thought she poisoned her for a second, there. "Thanks."

"How did you _make_ this?" She slurps up another spoonful before she's even finished.

Kosuke answers seriously, because cooking is a serious matter that she is seriously serious about. Seriously. "Caramelize the onions a bit, sear the meat before stewing, use honey instead of sugar. It's the only right way."

Haruhi is so head-over-heels for the stew that she's almost too far gone. Even so, her brows furrow together and she asks, "You seem around my age. Do you go to college? We came out here early because classes were cancelled today." Under her breath, she adds, "Tamaki couldn't run us out here fast enough…"

Does Kosuke want to depress her with her sob story? No. It isn't worth it. "No college for me. Life just didn't go that way." Eager for a change in subject: "Who's Tamaki?"

"Uh…" Haruhi lifts a hand to her mouth and tugs her glove off with her teeth. A gold band with a diamond, simple but beautiful, shines on her ring finger. A smile splits across Kosuke's face, she can't help it.

"Oh! Congratulations! You must be excited."

"Oh, yeah. Sure."

Such enthusiasm.

"Or not?" Kosuke offers.

"No—I mean, yes, of course I'm excited to get married, but—" Haruhi sighs a heavy breath. "Tamaki has always been way too much to keep up with, and this is no exception. The first ring he wanted to get was as big as a golfball."

Kosuke teases, "You poor thing."

She snorts. "Yeah, I know. What horror. But I just don't want it to be a huge extravaganza, you know? I don't want it to be about glasses made of diamond and a solid gold aisle. It's too much. Maybe I'm being whiny, I don't know."

"No, no. I get it. You want it to be about you guys, not how much money you can spend at once."

"Yeah." Haruhi sounds worryingly relieved, like someone sharing the sentiment isn't common enough.

"So." Kosuke wrangles one of the chairs free, then another, setting them close to the fire. "What abominations did he wish to leash upon you?"

A destination wedding to France, as it turns out—not bad in any way, but at the Shangri la Hotel, with 10 different meal options, a seven-tier cake, a wedding dress of around 150k and a guest list into the hundreds. This is common among Tamaki's crowd, apparently. Weddings aren't just celebrations of love, they are fashion shows, advertisements, public displays of financial standing. It doesn't take much to put together that the groom-to-be is, as Jet would have put it, _loaded._

Kosuke lets her go on as long as she wants; it seems to help. Haruhi's father, Ranka, texts her to say he'd already gotten lunch. So Haruhi gets more stew and K gets more conversation than she's gotten in literal weeks.

Wedding talk branches out to Haruhi herself, and even Kosuke, but not as much. Haruhi is through with her second year of school, Tamaki his third. She doesn't go into detail, but Tamaki is visiting his mother in Paris, which is a big deal, somehow. Kosuke explains how her siblings are at school, she just doesn't have time for college, and (dismissively) that she and her boyfriend have broken up.

It's during their talk that a low rumble sounds off overhead. Kosuke thinks it sounds like something rolling across the floor upstairs, only for it to come again, louder, with more presence. It's been overcast all day, but she hasn't heard a word of possible rain.

Haruhi stands to her feet, stew still in hand but now clearly worried. "Oh, no…Maybe I ought to head back before—"

It's as if the clouds burst open. One second, there are perhaps a few spare drops hitting here and there, and the next, it's a full-force tsunami crashing down upon the house. Kosuke and Haruhi both jump high in the air. It isn't deafening, but the rain hitting the windows have made a steady, low roar.

"Guess not," Kosuke lamely jokes. She thinks it lucky that she'd come inside after all…and then remembers why she was on the roof to begin with. _"Agh!"_

She makes Haruhi jump again by springing up and out of her chair at a speed that almost has her crashing to the floor. Without a word of explanation, she grabs the nearest bowl she finds in the kitchen and dashes up the stairs. There's already a good puddle on her bedroom floor; she sets the bowl atop with a sigh.

"Kosuke?" Haruhi's calling voice has her coming back. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, no further. "What's wrong?"

"A leak," she sighs. "Everything is okay."

The forces of nature seems to have picked up comedic timing that day, because just after she says that, the whole house goes a gloomy gray, the fridge stops humming, and the stewpot clicks off. Thunder rolls above them, not cracking, but heavy.

Kosuke sees Haruhi's legs go stiff and her arms reach for her elbows. She's seen the look on Minami's face several times before they made up the Lights Are Out protocol.

"Um." Haruhi swallows. "You sure?"

"Yeah. This happens during _light_ showers around here." She can tell that Haruhi is scared, it's obvious, but she doesn't want to question it, doesn't want to embarrass her. Instead, because she knows that it might help, she declares, "Well, now that you're here, you'll have to take part in our family tradition. House rule."

* * *

She at first worries that Haruhi will not like the No Lights protocol whatsoever, that maybe she'd think it childish or boring or just not something she wants to do with a girl she has just met. Not only does Haruhi not mind it, though: she seems to _love_ it. Jigsaw puzzles, Jinsei Game, cards…Kosuke has gathered that thunderstorms scared Haruhi, but the little time-passers helped. Especially when she grabs the comforter off her bed to make an impromptu tent for her to nest in beneath one of the tables.

The only thing missing is the ramen, if only because they already have the stew in the still-hot pot, but no matter—it gives them more time to talk, and talk they do, and Kosuke never gets the feeling that they were somehow trapped together. She learns other things as they talk, like how Haruhi had gotten a scholarship to Ouran Academy and that was how she met Tamaki. Her tone implied there is more of a story there, but she doesn't go into detail.

Haruhi is now in college to become an attorney, and is planning on heading out to the United States for further study. "The classes are hard, but it helps that I'm interested, you know? It's harder to sit through a class you don't care about."

Kosuke, hunched over a 300-piece moon-and-stars puzzle, huffs a laugh. "That explains why I practically failed PE every year."

Haruhi chuckles in response, but looks up from sewing buttons into scrap cloth to ask, "What about you? If you had to go to college, I mean."

"I actually _was_ going to go to college, at Seneca." She hesitates to give such details before, but maybe a combination of the rainfall and much-needed downtime had loosened up her good reason. "I was going into general business-running, just in case I decided to take over the restaurant after all. I guess I was going to figure out my actual major when I got there."

"Didn't have a plan?"

"My interests don't stick too much as is…It's kind of hard to pick the thing you want to revolve four years of college and the rest of your career around. I thought about teaching, nursing, even photography at some point, but…" Kosuke shrugs. "Nothing felt right."

"Is that why you don't go to college now?"

"No, uh…" It isn't easy to swallow the knot in her throat, it's just familiar. "I wouldn't have the time to; I have to take care of the kids, and the money…"

"What about your parents? Are they busy, or something?"

It isn't like she's going to be able to just lie about it forever, right? It isn't something for her to hide, anyway. She hasn't done anything wrong. The words just don't taste any better in her mouth no matter how many times she says them.

She has to say them, though, because life keeps going and she has to, too.

"They passed away, earlier this year. They were in a car accident."

As expected, there is a length of silence that follows. She keeps her head down and focuses on the puzzle, but all she does is look. She just doesn't want to see that look of crushing pity again; she is sick to death of it.

Finally, Haruhi replies with, "Kosuke, I'm so sorry." It's sincere, but appropriately so. Her voice doesn't go soft and weak like she's going to start shedding tears for the poor little thing, pull her close and tell her everything will be alright. It's a nice change of pace.

"That's why I'm not in college; I have to take care of Minami and Hitsuji. I'm all they've got."

"You don't have any other family?"

"My dad's parents have already passed away. My mom's…" Kosuke can't even offer an explanation because she didn't have one. She never had one. So she just shrugs and goes on. "They were both the only children, so no, it's just us."

Haruhi nods. She takes her eyes off Kosuke, which somehow lets her breathe a little easier. "My mother passed away when I was a little girl. I sort of took over the house. I didn't have to, I just did."

Kosuke still does not pry, because she picks up in her tone that she doesn't want her to. She didn't mean to be unappreciative of all the help and sympathy she'd been given, really, but Haruhi's approach is certainly refreshing. Kosuke _can_ tell her how much it still hurts, or how she still doesn't know what to do, but she doesn't have to. Haruhi knows.

Kosuke looks down at the cloth still in Haruhi's grasp. "How's my scarf coming along?"

She snorts. "I'm supposed to be knitting you a scarf?"

"I can't believe I let you into my home, gave you my food, and let you in on a family tradition, and you won't even knit me a scarf? The audacity…"

Haruhi chuckles, and then, audibly, the rain begins to lighten. A softening of the roar against the windows, a little bit of light shining through the gray clouds. They haven't heard a roll of thunder for a while, and the two share an affirming look that it has almost passed.

Then there is a knock, fast and urgent, on the front door. Another look, this one confused at who would be outside in such a downpour. A customer, maybe, but they'd have to be quite a desperate one.

Kosuke stands to her feet, crosses the room, opens the door…and is promptly thrown flat on her butt from sheer wind force.

She turns around while her head is still spinning, and sees Haruhi being hugged to death and back. She is cocooned in long limbs and gasping for breath.

"I told you you should have stayed," the attacker(?) cries with a tone almost like heartbreak. He pylls back to let Haruhi breathe, and from where she sits, Kosuke sees soft locks of hair like spun gold. "We waited forever for you! We headed out as soon as the rain lightened…"

Kosuke can't see it, but she hears the look Haruhi gave him, because…wasn't that just a few seconds ago? And the man replies, "You underestimate how quickly I can run."

There is another man on the doorstep, and Kosuke was too disoriented to notice him before. He's like the other one in that he's tall and long-limbed, but that's where the similarities stop. The stranger's hair is not only longer than Kosuke's has ever been, but softer and shinier. She's never been jealous of a man's hair before, but she is now, looking at the coppery waves held back in a loose tie.

He sees her first and foremost, and looks quite embarrassed. "Oh, dear…Please tell me he didn't break anything."

He's already moving forward and taking her gently by the elbows. Kosuke lets herself be pulled up to her feet. "I'm fine. I think. What was that?"

"My overdramatic, soon-to-be son-in-law. Your introduction to him was better than mine."

Only then does said soon-to-be son-in-law—Tamaki—seem to realize there were four people there, not three, and finally turns to look at her. And—

Okay, no, no one is allowed to be this beautiful. This just wasn't possible. Or fair. Seriously, are his features carved out of marble? Kosuke has never seen eyes such a rich shade of violet. They can't be real.

He blinks once, twice, then finally…kneels down and bends his head to the floorboards.

"I am so very sorry for my rudeness," he says, and a very dark part of Kosuke's mind notes that Haruhi hadn't sounded as stricken when she told her that her parents had passed away. "Clearly you have been taking care of Haruhi and I did not so much as thank you before barging into your home."

Kosuke gives Haruhi a look that says, _Please tell me he isn't serious._

Haruhi replies with a look that says, _Please forgive him so we can all be free._

"It's fine," Kosuke answers with a barely-contained sigh. "Really."

He stands to his feet once again and smiles at her— _gah,_ that smile is too perfect. Kosuke controls her face because she doesn't want him to think she's disgusted with him, but it is hard. She is thoroughly discomfited by those blinding pearls. "I'm Tamaki Suoh. Thank you very, very much for watching over Haruhi during the storm."

"Oh, no, no need. I enjoyed the company." Kosuke tries not to laugh at Haruhi's expression as she stands behind her fiancé's back. It is the painfully exhausted look of a woman fed up with being treated with such overbearing adoration. "Congratulations, by the way."

"Thank you!" Tamaki beams bright as the sun and holds up his hand to show the gold band around his finger. "I'm a very lucky man!"

"Indeed he is," the other man cuts in, "and my only wish for my daughter to be lucky by not having an overbearing husband."

Kosuke should've seen the similarities between them sooner, really. Narrowing her eyes, though, she can't help but tease, "Didn't you _also_ leave 'when the rain lightened up'?"

"The overbearing love of a father is different from the overbearing love of a husband." Catching the deflated…everything on Tamaki, though, he lets out a sigh and waves a hand through the air. "Come on, now, I'm ribbing. Those two are a perfect match and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. I'm Ranka Fujioka, dear. It's nice to meet you."

Kosuke bows to him with a smile, then does the same for Tamaki. "Nice to meet you, too." But then she realizes just how long they have spent in the dark. "Oh, no, what time is it?"

Ranka holds his wrist upwards. "A quarter until three."

"Ohhhhh dear…I am so sorry, but I have to go pick up my brother and sister from school! I didn't realize how late it was…"

"No worries," Ranka assures her, gesturing Tamaki and Haruhi forward. Haruhi hurries to pick up the scarf she'd unwound from her neck. "Thank you again."

"I should help clean this up," Haruhi insists, but looking at their makeshift tent and the puzzle and the sewing kit, she falters. "I can, uh…"

"No, no, it's fine! Don't worry about it!"

The three of them come out of the house, drawing up their hoods against the sparse but chilling rainfall still coming down. While Kosuke is locking up the front door, Haruhi tells her, "Thanks again. Usually thunderstorms are a _nightmare_ for me…"

"Like I said, I was happy for the company. It was nice meeting you!"

Then the two of them part ways, and Kosuke isn't thinking too much about the whole thing as she leads the children by hand through the rain-slick sidewalks back home. She guesses it was just one of those once-upon-a-blue-moon kind encounters you have with strangers. A pleasant memory, but a memory still. She only really thinks about it again after the kids are asleep in their beds—the power having returned while they were gone, which miffed Minami and Hitsuji both. It'd been nice, but she doubts she's going to see Haruhi ever again.

Haruhi returns the next day with a dry mix of hot cocoa in hand. It's a drier, sunnier day, and the somewhat shy smile is unhidden by any scarves.

"I know it's not stew, but I figured I should pay you back somehow." _Do you want to hang out some more?_

"Thanks. Here, I'll get the kettle." _Sure. I'm bored, too._

* * *

Not only does Haruhi return: she _keeps_ returning. She does for the last two days of their vacation and tops it off by giving Kosuke her phone number. "To keep in touch."

Remembering how easily Okina slipped away could very well be why Kosuke is mindful of sending messages, replying to messages, and always picking up her phone. It's misplaced, probably—shouldn't she be giving the newfound enthusiasm towards Okina, not a newcomer she hasn't known for even a month? But something in Kosuke's head tells her Okina's ship has sailed.

Sometimes Haruhi will call for a reason—"Hey, I'm about to make Soba noodles, any advice?"—but others, it's just to talk, nothing more. School, work, Tamaki, Ranka, Minami, Hitsuji, nothing is off the table, really. Kosuke is convinced her life is not nearly as captivating, but Haruhi shows genuine interest just in a story of Kosuke knocking over a pyramid of cans at work, or something just as boring.

She comes back for another trip on winter break, and she meets Hitsuji and Minami for the first time. Hitsuji is as shy as ever, mostly ducking his head or hiding behind Kosuke's legs. Minami, though…she interrogates Haruhi as if she's a threat. She needs her name, age, favorite color, hometown and—most importantly—does she think Kosuke is a good cook? Haruhi agrees with much vigor, which is good. Kosuke can take criticism of her food. Minami can't. By the end of that first day, Hitsuji is inviting her to games of pretend and Minami lets her take her favorite color (red) on board games.

Sometimes Ranka or Tamaki tag along on these visits, and Kosuke becomes well-acquainted with both. Ranka—real name Ryoji, but he insists on being called by his stage name—is a flamboyant man whose favorite past time seems to be doting on his daughter. He is absolutely delighted that Haruhi and Kosuke are friends, not because Haruhi is without them, but she apparently doesn't have a close female friend. He insists this is important, and Kosuke doesn't disagree, she guesses.

It's hard to disagree with Ranka about anything. Kind and cheerful as he is, he's a man that doesn't seem to take arguments. Not bad at all, however, it's even endearing. Thing is, though, whenever he comes to the Lily Bowl, he all but forces Kosuke to sit down and talk to Haruhi while he does the housework. Kosuke doesn't like it, but again: no arguments. It just doesn't help that Ranka seems to be unused to housework, but he's trying so hard. And he absolutely _Adores_ Minami and Hitsuji with a capital A. The first time he lays eyes on them, he's on cloud nine.

Tamaki is…wow.

Tamaki Suoh is 'wow'. That's a good word.

He is very, very much aware that he's a beautiful man and he has no shame declaring it. Sometimes his movements seem to only exist to highlight his features. At his command, heaven's light shines down upon him and turns the air around him shimmering. Everything he does, down to his very breaths, are…passionate. He can't fetch cups from the cupboard without declaring it to the world. There are so many sweeps of his arm every time he comes. And even though Haruhi promises he's working on it, there's a wonder with all the "commoner" stuff that Kosuke makes a point to not be offended about. "Why, yes, Tamaki. I did fix this hole in my jeans with a miscolored patch because I can't afford a tailor! Thank you for noticing!"

But he is so stupidly _sweet,_ for heaven's sake. Not unlike his future father-in-law, he is just so happy that Haruhi and Kosuke are friends, and insists that this makes the two of them friends as well. He wants to know everything about her, her whole life story. He gushes and frets and fawns over her. Every single time he comes, he crushes her in a hug. It's odd to befriend someone so quickly, but Kosuke doesn't mind calling him that: a friend.

As overbearing as he can be, he's not just bold charm and dashing looks. He's a very understanding person, someone who tells when you're not feeling good and demands to know why. He protests not so much against the constant work Kosuke does, but her refusal to take a break. When he's told of what happened to Kosuke's parents, he so very sincerely offers his condolences and tells her that she's a very strong person. Kosuke likes Tamaki.

He's also so head-over-heels for his fiancée that Kosuke can't notlike him. There is no doubt in Kosuke's mind that Haruhi loves him just as much, but people can love different ways—doesn't make it any lesser. Haruhi does it in gentle touches and tender looks and the slightest softening of her voice when she speaks to him. Tamaki does it in star-struck stares and the constant reminder of just how eager he is to be her husband—the walking epitome of 'adoration.' Haruhi is a lucky woman and Tamaki is a lucky man. Kosuke is happy for them.

Kosuke's nineteenth birthday is spent between just her and her siblings—they buy her a box of chocolates together, and Kosuke splurges to make her favorite dish of honey glazed salmon. It's not at all bad, it's just kind of lonely and a reminder of how limited her company is now.

It is her fault, apparently, because Haruhi and Tamaki are both very, very annoyed that she didn't _tell_ them it was her birthday, and they only find out two weeks after the fact. So now they have to wait another three hundred and sixty-five days. Foolish girl.

Christmas, however, is much better. The inside of the Lily Bowl is decked out in their yearly decorations of paper snowflakes and snowman window stickers. The tree goes up in the dining room. On the morning of, Kosuke fixes up hot cocoa and roasted chestnuts before waking up the children for their present-fest. Minami gets a new wardrobe for her doll, Hitsuji gets a painting smock and easel, and they both get goodies of candy and toys and whatnot. Kosuke gets a pretty necklace in return. They laugh and cheer and go outside to play in the snow until they are aching from the cold. Again, nice, just with a noticeable hole there. Three people instead of five.

Two days later, Haruhi is there, with gifts from her, Tamaki, and Ranka in tow: an apron, a throw blanket, and a _(very. expensive._ but beautifully sharp _)_ chef's knife. Kosuke sends her back home with a comfy sweatshirt, a pajama set, and a box of prime "commoner's" coffee. Both are very happy.

It's also during this visit—it's too cold for them go outside, so Kosuke and Haruhi watch the children through the kitchen window, sipping on more cocoa—that they get back on the topic of Kosuke's parents.

"Is this what you've been doing all this time?" Haruhi asks as Minami chases Hitsuji around the backyard. Kosuke is going to call them in, soon. Doesn't want them getting sick. "Taking care of the children?"

"Basically. If I went to college, I could get a better job, but when would I ever have the time for that?"

Haruhi nods. She gets it. "So what are you going to do?"

"Stay put, I suppose. Wait until the kids are older and hope I don't go bankrupt until then."

"Bankrupt?"

Man. Kosuke hadn't meant to drop that much information. "The money will run out eventually. I don't know what the plan is, exactly, but…I'll figure something out. I have to."

Haruhi doesn't say anything further than that.


	7. Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!  
> THE LAST PART OF THIS CHAPTER INCLUDES UNWANTED SEXUAL ADVANCES/HARASSMENT!  
> PLEASE BE WARNED!

In late January, Kosuke does probably the dumbest, most desperate thing she has ever done.

It begins with a man in a suit arriving on the doorstep of The Lily Bowl.

The knock on the door is loud, firm, and Kosuke hears it from all the way up the stairs, in her room. She's sitting up on the floor, back against her bed, trying to sew up a tear in her comforter. She's intent to simply ignore it. Rude, maybe, but the knocker has no way of knowing she's home. It's likely just another person trying to figure out why The Lily Bowl isn't open anymore. They are much less frequent now, but she has lost their patience with them.

But then, _THUD THUD THUD,_ another round so harsh and sudden Kosuke pricks herself with the needle. She sucks her fingertip and stands up at the same time, flush with irritation. So it's going to be one of _those_ "customers." With Hitsuji taking a nap in his bedroom—Minami being absent on another birthday party—she hopes that this one will at least keep their tantrum to a minimum.

As said, the man is wearing a suit, and not a very good one at that. It does not fit him, and the tie isn't tightened. The front has a wrinkle creased across the breast. The suit is as dark as his hair, which is slicked back with a gallon's worth of gel. Kosuke cannot see his eyes behind his sunglasses.

Kosuke sees him, and she thinks _trouble._

"Hello," the man greets, with a small smile and not a drop of genuineness. "Sorry 'bout that. I thought I saw a light in the window."

"It's fine, but I'm sorry—the restaurant is closed." She says this, even though she somehow knows what the man is going to say next.

"I'm not here to eat, sorry. Mind if I come in?"

In he goes, walking right past her without another word. Kosuke's mind goes from wondering what this guy wants to wondering how fast it will take her to reach the phone and call for the police. Hitsuji is still upstairs. Sleeping.

The man looks around the place, especially the chairs and tables still aside and against the walls. Even if the children are not in the room, evidence of them is everywhere. One of Minami's dolls lies on the fireplace and Hitsuji has somehow forgotten one sneaker on the corner. The man tip-toes through a spill of building blocks.

"This is a sad sight." His voice is far too sweet with sympathy. "I remember when this place was full of people."

Kosuke says nothing.

"You don't recognize me, do you?"

Kosuke says nothing again, but now because she does not know _what_ to say. Her silence and (unstoppable) furrow of her eyebrows are answer enough, though.

"Guess not. We never talked, I think I just caught a look at you every now and then. Your hair looks better now."

"What do you want?"

The man runs a hand down the front of his suit, as if it will at all help its fit. The look he gives her does not scare her, but she is unnerved. It is the same look of a child delighting in ripping off spider legs or pulling apart centipedes. He's having fun.

"Me and your father were…Well, not _friends,_ I suppose." Kosuke feels a chill go up her back, but she fights it down. "We were more like business partners. He wasn't even your father, was he?"

"What do you _want?_ " she asks again.

He huffs. "Now, now, don't be rude. I'm not here to hurt you. _I'm_ the one with the trouble here, really. Marti has put me in an unfair position. _Had,_ I mean."

If she runs out of the door right behind her, she can call out for help, or find a phone. But then she'll be leaving Hitsuji with him. Maybe he knows that, and that is why he stands between her and the stairs. So now she wonders, if Hitsuji wanders down, would he listen if she tells him to run? If the man moves to go up the stairs, will she be able to take him down? She could call the police or fend him off, she won't be able to do both.

She takes far too long to reply, and maybe she's eyeing the stairway too much, because the man sighs. "I told you, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm just taking care of some business."

He reaches into his blazer and withdraws a folded piece of paper. He holds it out, but doesn't take any steps forward. Making her come to him. She does, slowly, and comes no closer than the distance it takes to take the paper. The way his hands slip into his pants pockets, he seems to be awaiting her reaction with amusement.

The first thing Kosuke sees when she unfolds the paper is, clear as crystal, Marti's handwriting.

The second this is the word "debt"—written the same as every other word, but jumping out at her from the paper regardless.

Then it's just a stream of words that hit her hard in the chest, over and over.

… _more time to…_

… _slow month for The Lily Bowl._

… _apologize…_

_Please—_

… _money._

_Money…_

— _money—_

It's a realization that stabs into her bit by bit, until she can't see the paper, the floor, or her own hands anymore—they fade away in favor of a writhing black pit in her stomach.

Marti had dealt with a loan shark.

Marti owned debts to a loan shark.

Kosuke is standing in the room with said loan shark.

She shouldn't believe it.

Maybe she's a rotten daughter for not throwing the paper down and yelling no, he's lying, she doesn't believe him!

But much like how she'd known Okina and her were going to drift away, or how she knew that Kohta was planning on breaking up with her that night, she just— _knows._

Kosuke fears she's going to vomit on the shark's shoes.

He watches her, neither smiling nor frowning, but with a light in his eyes. He's _considering_ smiling, if anything. Kosuke thinks that she really is alone with a shark—a hungry one with many teeth that has just tasted blood in the water.

She can feel herself starting to spiral, but he catches her by clicking his tongue. "As you can see, that letter is dated very shortly before his and your mother's accident. Obviously, this debt went…unpaid."

The shark has sunk its teeth right into her, and isn't going to let go.

Kosuke doesn't think she was going to be able to speak for weeks, let alone in this moment. "I don't owe anything to you."

" _Technically,_ you're correct. However, you are the only adult of the remaining family, no? That is, I _could_ take this up with the other daughter, but I doubt she knows how to _spell_ 'indebted'." He laughs like it's just a joke.

Kosuke _does_ refuse to believe the next thought that comes to her. "He didn't sign our names on anything!"

"No, no, no. There isn't really 'anything' _to_ sign them on. However, the fact of the matter is that I have quite a bit of money owed to me, and I need _someone_ to give it back."

She doesn't think he's going to lay his hands on her. His threat is not a physical one—not now, anyway, but it could be. _Would_ be. It's still just the two of them, but Kosuke now feels inexplicably surrounded.

There's a choice, albeit a choice between two poisons for all three Nakaharas to drink. Both would choke them pale, but Kosuke has to _think._ Weigh her options, as few as there are.

Wait, no.

What is she thinking?

"I don't have to pay you anything, and I'm not going to." She drops the letter and lets it flutter to her feet. "Get out of my house."

He seems…unimpressed. "Care to explain?"

Maybe she's just feeding him, but she can't afford to feel or show fear to him. Her stance is as sturdy as a house of cards as-is. "You are _not_ going to come into my home and threaten me into giving you money I _never_ promised you. Leave before I call the police."

She's planning on calling them regardless, of course, but what other ammunition does she have?

The shark runs his tongue over his teeth, which is just _too_ fitting. "Well, here's the funny little thing about the police: they have to _investigate_ things, and investigating takes some time. Enough time for quite a bit to happen—word to spread, and such."

Kosuke should've known there's a reason he's so calm. The police must have been her most obvious defense. And it's gone—despite what she'd thought as a child, they do not appear in an instant and make all the bad things disappear.

"What is _wrong_ with you?"

Kosuke says it without thinking, but all the shark does is roll his eyes. "Am I not being clear? I have lost a large sum of money that was promised to be returned to me. Now I would like it back. Here: for your convenience."

Another slip of paper is extended, and though Kosuke does not take it, she sees the yen symbol and the numbers that go with it.

It's another sickening stab.

It is more than half of all their money.

"It doesn't need to be paid all at once." He places the card atop the fireplace when she still refuses. "100,000 yen a week will work, and probably won't catch too much attention from your bank. My mailing address is on the back."

"My father never would have taken this much. The restaurant always had good business."

"True," he agrees, "but loans have interests. It's my fault, partially. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I figured it would be better to allow you time to grieve."

Two more things occur to Kosuke.

One: there is no way the interest rate was capped off at the legal twenty percent.

Two: the shark has waited so many months after Marti's death to _increase_ said interest.

What. The. _Hell._

And _then—_ because this whole hellstorm of a situation simply has to prove that yes, it can get worse—Hitsuji enters the room.

He's wiping the sleep from his eyes, his clothes rumpled from his bed. He is suddenly, painfully _tiny,_ and Kosuke is struck with the image of a mouse. Or, more fitting, a small fish.

The shark smiles. Hungrily. "Hello. You must be Hitsuji."

Hitsuji, still young and so very shy, ignores him entirely and says, "'M hungry."

The shark moves away from him and towards Kosuke—or the door behind her, rather. Kosuke steps aside to let him through, and the brief smirk he gives her is triumphant. It's a look that screams, _I know the children are your priority._

"Best get to that, then." The shark pauses with his hand on the door. "I think the end of next week would be a good time to start."

Then he just… _leaves,_ shutting the door behind him.

"Who w'zat?" Hitsuji asks.

Kosuke snatches up the letter. She knows Hitsuji won't be able to read it, but she doesn't want him to look at it.

"No one," Kosuke tells him. She never even caught the shark's name.

* * *

That night, Kosuke falls back into an old habit and sits between the kids' beds while they sleep. It's unfair that they are the only people she can think of who knew her parents beyond their names. She wants to ask, "Why did Marti do that? why did he do this to _us?"_ But they don't know anything, and Kosuke doesn't want them to.

She just…She knew that Marti was a human, and humans are never wholly good or wholly bad, but to find out that he did something like this just doesn't fit into what she knows of him. It's a square peg in a round hole. That's not Marti.

Marti was sweet and caring, and loved his family so much it was not unusual of him to cry at their school events or birthdays. He always put them before himself.

Which…might explain why he would have done such a thing.

 _She_ is hardly processing that her father wasn't all who she thought he was. _The kids_ wouldn't be able to even hear it.

* * *

Kosuke doesn't tell Haruhi, either, because she doesn't see how any good would come from it. The police are already off the table. Unless Haruhi is secretly an assassin, all she'd be able to do was fret and fuss. She might even call the police _herself._

So it becomes Kosuke's little dirty secret. And she hates it. And she's almost physically ill from it.

She decides without an ounce of happiness that the lesser of the two evils would be to just refuse. She Cannot, with a capital C, set them up for having more than half their money taken away. That isn't an option. How would they survive that kind of blow?

The week goes by like an awful storm only Kosuke is caught in. Every minute she spends with the children, or talks with Haruhi over the phone, all she can do is put on a smile as if nothing has changed. Nope. Not at all. All the same.

One day goes by, then two, and Kosuke is stupid enough to almost think that maybe the shark was just bluffing and they'll be fine.

Again: stupid.

"Kosuke? Our gate broke!"

Kosuke catches a pancake on a plate and looks into the dining room. Minami is on her tiptoes to look through the front window, Hitsuji abandoning his blocks to join her.

"Yeah?" Kosuke snaps the stove heat off. The gate had broken its hinges before.

"Yeah, real bad."

Minami is right. Very bad. Kosuke was wrong for thinking it was just one of the hinges.

Up close, as she stands before it with her apron still tied around her waist, she sees how much of an _obliteration_ it is. The white boards lie in jagged hunks of splinters now. Nails are scattered across the sidewalk. Ironically, the hinges are the only things in fair condition.

"What happened?" Minami asks from beside her.

"Maybe a car crashed into it," Kosuke lies. She feels sick again. "Hitsuji, don't play with that."

Hitsuji drops the plank of wood obediently, but Minami frowns. "They didn't tell us!"

"No, they didn't. But it's okay. We can get another one."

Kosuke doesn't let them help clean up the mess, fearing cuts and splinters, so they stand aside and watch her instead. They still have no idea about anything and yet Kosuke worries they've caught onto something.

Two more days. More stupid wishful thinking. The thought that maybe it really was just a car.

No. Again.

Kosuke is fully prepared to go in for a normal day of work—scanning canned goods, taking inventory, counting out change—and she instead gets the sight of a small crowd gathered outside the store and a police car parked outside the doors.

The owner of the store, a small, middle-aged woman named Miss Yukino, is standing just a few feet past the doors with a hand clasped over her mouth. She sees Kosuke approaching, and she just deflates. Behind her glasses, her eyes are dry, but heavy with stress Kosuke is all too familiar with.

"I'm sorry," Miss Yukino tells her, "but it looks like we won't be open for business today. I'll still pay you for your hours."

"No, no…" Kosuke looks past her and only then sees the problem: one of the front windows has been completely shattered. Shards of glass are glittering all over the ground. One of the officers just walks right through the empty frame with his footsteps crackling. "What happened?"

Miss Yukino shakes her head. "Someone threw a rock through the window last night. Probably some teenager."

That's when Kosuke is just forced to accept that she no longer has a choice, and she never did. Not just because someone else has been pulled into it—a completely innocent person only related to Kosuke by _employment_ , at that—but because it was never just her, and she'd known that from the beginning. First it's just a replaceable gate. Then it's someone Kosuke knows. Next, it will be someone closer, and who will that be? Haruhi, or the children?

"Kosuke, honey, are you alright?" Miss Yukino presses a hand to her back. Kosuke is sweating like a pig. "You look like you're about to be sick!"

"I'm fine." Kosuke swallows the bile rising in her throat. "I'm sorry, Miss Yukino."

"Don't be, sweetie. It wasn't your fault."

* * *

Kosuke pulls 50,000 yen one day and again two days later. The bills go into an envelope, and the envelope goes to the address the shark gave her.

He sends back a note.

_Glad to have your cooperation. I'll stop the interest. Seems fair._

* * *

100,000 yen a week, week after week. He was right: the bank doesn't notice. Or, if they do, they probably chalk it up to an increase in the cost of raising two children. Or just really dumb decisions.

Her behavior doesn't go unnoted, even though she tries to control it. Staring off into space, unengaged in conversation, her acting skills had always been lackluster.

The next time she sees Haruhi, when she comes out to the town for an impromptu visit, she realizes what's going on when Haruhi starts putting a hand on her shoulder in their casual conversations. She thinks Kosuke is regressing in her grief—like so many months after losing her parents was what made her see how life was truly going to be from now on. It's reasonable. Perhaps that's why she woke up that morning to Minami in her bed, curled into her side.

Yes, there is guilt at what she's doing to them. Yes, there is anger at what Marti had done to them. Along those, though, Kosuke is thinking, thinking, thinking. If they can't survive a financial gutting such as this, then Kosuke has to find a way to help all of them. She has to get money—a lot of it, and soon.

The most obvious thing to do is get a second job, but her cashier position at Miss Yukino's store is all she can manage as-is. She has no more time to spare, and no experience to offer. She entertains the idea of somehow selling her cooking. Problem is, she's fairly sure she's going to need some kind of permit for that, and she has no clue how she'd go about advertising without coming off as a beggar or a narcissist.

Second option: selling. Selling what? They had nothing _to_ sell except the chairs and tables—which she _does_ list for sale, but has no takers as of yet. They can't sell the kitchen equipment they still use, or the clothes off their backs. It may come down to that, but until then, she'll keep their lives as unchanged as possible.

She has truly, sincerely reached the peak of desperation, and all she sees to do is search for any place that will have her. Babysitting, petsitting, oddjob repairs, at-home cook. That last one pulls up no nearby results, but the others she writes down in a list.

Then she finds it: one of the worst choices she can make.

It's at a domain called

At first, K thinks she's inexplicably been suggested a dating site. To be sure, she clicks the link. It pulls up a simplistic but well-designed page with the words _LOOKING FOR COMPANY TONIGHT?_ in big, glittery letters at the top. Beneath that is an image of two silhouettes, a man and a woman, sitting at a table and clinking their wine glasses together. A few subpages are listed to the side.

_LOOKING?  
OFFERING?  
CURRENT LISTINGS  
PROFILES_

Well, it _is_ a dating website.

A _compensated_ dating website.

The feeling Kosuke is struck with is not horror, or disgust, but… _extreme discomfort._ In high school, once, a couple of girls in her class had spread a rumor that one of their classmates was dating men for money after school. The liars got tongue lashes and long suspensions—good for it, catty little bullies—but the poor girl also had to endure whispers, looks, and more than one teacher interrogation.

Kosuke understands, mostly, why it isn't exactly smiled upon. It's a matter of dignity for the most part. Then there's age, because should any teenager be getting their money from dating much older people, however fake it is?

Finally, and in all honestly, the first thought of many would not be an innocent meal at a restaurant, or harmless karaoke. It'd be of other requests only whispered, of the buyer and the seller finding places more private, of teenage girls trying to choke down fear as they open the door of a hotel bedroom…

Kosuke doesn't want to judge too harshly. She guessed, if it truly was talking and laughing, perhaps it's just a simple way too get money. She also wanted to say that there are people like her that are desperate…but doesn't that make it worse, not better? To do it because you had to, not because you want to?

Kosuke deletes the tab.

Then she opens it again.

Delete.

Open.

Peek at the listings.

Delete.

Open.

Delete.

Open.

What…in the _hell_ is she doing?!

She can't possibly be considering this. This is too deep of a dive into darker waters. It doesn't really matter if _she_ can try not to judge too harshly for it, others wouldn't. She could be denied real jobs over this. The children— _they_ 'd no doubt be harassed and humiliated for it, too. 'Hey, Minami, my big brother said your sister dates guys for money, is that true?'

Or maybe not?

If she's sneaky about it, maybe…Surely others have figured out how to do it without anyone knowing. Anonymity might just be part of the job.

Wait, no.

No, no.

She's not doing this. No way.

Kosuke shuts her laptop and stands to her feet. She'll find something that needs to be cleaned. Clearly she's overworked her brain to the point of delirium. That's it.

* * *

That night, while the children are fast asleep, Kosuke begins to set up a profile.

She doesn't even let herself think anymore. All that matters is that this will get them money, and that's what they need.

Signing up is easy to do but difficult to power through. Kosuke enters as a "companion", and the only remotely identifying thing asked for is an e-mail address. Otherwise, she can lie about her age, her name, her location…At the very least, there is a notice about legalities and responsibilities for those of a certain age, but it's very vague and will probably never hold up in court.

Kosuke lies that her name is Tsubaki (flowers and common names seem most-used by the site) but is honest about being 19, because why not? There is no option to describe herself, which she supposes makes sense: the customer is buying what they _want_ you to do—blush, giggle, listen—not what you really are.

Taking a photo is the worst part. Between adjusting her bedroom lights and turning her head left and right, she has the most time to think, _What are you doing?_ Over and over. She powers through, though, until she gets a headshot of decent quality and no obvious terror.

Her profile goes up, and though she's offered a chance to browse through some listings, she slaps her laptop shut and calls it a night. In one last attempt to stop this madness, she tells herself that if the little mailbox in the corner has no hearts in the morning, she'll let this all go as an embarrassing memory to squirm about in the future.

In the morning, she has eight hearts. One invitation is to Tokyo, that weekend, for 76,000 yen.

* * *

Kosuke spends a lot of time wondering if she is honestly going to do this. There's nausea, sweating, and enough silence for Minami to ask what's wrong before she makes up her mind. It's still sickening.

She needs a gameplan now. She'll need an appropriate outfit, tons of mental practice and prep, and—most importantly—someone to watch the children past midnight.

Kosuke spends over an hour looking up names and calling numbers in hopes of finding a babysitter. She doesn't want to judge, but she marks off anyone who strikes her as just trying to make some quick, careless money. Then she looks for an affordable, but respectable price range. In the end, she finds three possibilities. The first is a teenager whose parents won't let her work past nine. The next has an unusual price policy for the number, ages, and hours that Kosuke can't keep up with. The last seems perfect until she bemoans that she's moved from Tokyo and didn't update that on her listing.

So now Kosuke is between a rock and a hard place. She'll already be buying a hotel room and bus tickets—if she lies well enough, she can tell the kids she's doing bank business to spare the inevitable demand to do something while they're in Tokyo—so if she forks out some extra cash for a babysitter, that 76,000 yen won't be much.

Haruhi is an option.

She lives in Tokyo already. She's never had a problem with the children, she likes them. But are they friends enough to ask such a favor? All Kosuke can do is ask.

Or…not. What she does instead is not bad, maybe, but it is far and beyond cowardly and immature.

The next time Haruhi calls her, she plays up the quietness. Short answers, no questions. She hopes she doesn't come off as mad, but it works.

" _Kosuke, are you okay? You're really quiet."_

"What? Oh, yeah! Just…thinking."

" _Is something wrong?"_

"No. Yes. Kind of." Kosuke fakes a sigh. She really, really hates herself. "Do you remember that friend I told you about? Okina?"

" _Yes?"_

"She just called me. She and some other friends are getting together in Tokyo this weekend. It's going to be a late-night walk around the city sort of thing, I think."

" _Kosuke, that's great! Are you excited?"_

"Not really, no. I don't think I'm going."

" _Why not?"_ A rustle. _"If you're worried about it being awkward, you'll be with your other friends…SHE invited you, too."_

"No, I'd love to go and get caught up with everyone! I just have two little, lovable problems that I would have to take with me."

" _Ohhh…Well, why don't you get a babysitter? I'm sure we have a lot around here; I'll help you look, if you want."_

"Already did. They all either cost too much, won't work that late, or don't seem very dependable. I can't bring them with us, either. Even if we were out earlier, I don't think everyone would like the company, you know?"

" _Yeah, I know._ "

For just a second, Kosuke starts to prepare herself. Haruhi will say something sympathetic, and then Kosuke will just ask, and Haruhi will awkwardly realize that she was trying to nudge-nudge wink-wink her—

" _Why don't you leave them here with us? We'd be happy to!"_

Relief. Self-loathing.

"Oh no, no, no, Haruhi, I can't ask you to do that—"

" _You're not. I'm offering. It's no problem at all! Me and Dad love Hitsuji and Minami. You can trust us."_

 _Trust isn't the problem._ "It'll be so late, though…"

" _Then they'll be in bed sooner. Come on, Kosuke, I know how much you want to see Okina again. you can…Hold on."_

There's a voice Kosuke can't make out talking on Haruhi's end now, and Haruhi replies, _"Yeah, there's this get-together her friends are planning…Because she doesn't want to ask—Wait, Dad, my phone—!"_

Haruhi is gone. Ranka is here. _"Kosuke, dearest?"_

"Yes?"

" _You're going to go to that party and you're going to let us take care of the children. Getting out and socializing is important. Okay?"_

Kosuke forgets that this is even a lie for a second. She's gobsmacked. "I—yes, sir."

" _Wonderful! Call us with the details when you have them. Bye!"_

Then he hands the phone back to Haruhi, and Kosuke thinks, _That worked out._

* * *

Minami and Hitsuji are ecstatic that they're going on a trip for the first time in forever, to Haruhi's house, at that.

Minami is _not_ ecstatic to hear why.

"Why can't we go see Okina, too?"

Kosuke hates herself all the more, because not only is she lying to Minami, but now she's hurting her feelings, too. Minami is really staring her down, leaving Kosuke to keep folding her clothes into their luggage.

"We're going out late," Kosuke tells her, "and we're going to be doing grownup stuff. I'm sorry."

"Can't she come see us?"

 _Shink_ goes the knife into her heart. "I don't think so, Minami. She's very busy. She can only get tomorrow night to hang out with all of her friends…"

Minami is upset—not crying, just upset. She's got that pinched, angry look. Kosuke doesn't even know how Minami feels about Okina anymore. She'd known Okina for forever, her big sister's best friend who played with her, babysat her, and held her even more than said sister had. She'd held her when she cried and sometimes carried her to sleep. Then she just left.

So does Minami want to see her, or does she just want some semblance of normalcy back? is she just angry Kosuke is doing something without them?

Minami just keeps that angry face on and walks out in an angry stomp disguised as an "I'm bored" stomp. It seems the Nakahara sisters share their acting skills.

* * *

The two-hour bus ride goes without trouble, and the three of them arrive at the Fujioka's apartment at just a little after six-thirty. Hitsuji makes a directed beeline for the bathroom and Minami shyly introduces herself to Ranka.

"You let me take care of that," Ranka says as he takes her rolling bag from her. He uses his other arm to give Kosuke a little squeeze around the shoulder. "It's so great to have you here, hon. Make yourself at home."

Kosuke could try, but even as Haruhi and Ranka smile at them all so kindly, she can only feel more guilty. There is nothing wrong with the apartment, it's perfectly homey, but it's small. It's one of those apartments where everything is all together with only thin walls to separate them. Here is the living room, take a step, bedroom. Not ideal space for three adults and two children.

She turns to Haruhi. "You're sure you're okay with this?"

Suddenly, something thin and sugary is being shoved between her lips. Haruhi is semi-glowering. "Don't. I did not make cookies for nothing. Here, Minami, have one!"

"There they are!"

All Kosuke gets is a flash of color as warning, but that's about as much as she usually gets, so she opens her arms wide. Tamaki still squeezes her tight, but at least her arms are free to squeeze him back instead of just being trapped against her sides.

"Now don't you worry," Tamaki tells her as he lets go. He's as bright-eyed and pearly-toothed as ever. "You will all be treated like royalty as long as I'm here!"

Minami is still somewhat twirling her fingers together, but now she asks, "Why're you so sparkly?"

Tamaki only smiles wider as he turns to her. The heavenly light shining down upon him intensifies. "That is just my princely charm! We're going to have a lot of fun together, I just know it."

He gives her a wink, but no shy smile in return. Minami just stays put and stares at him.

Ranka grabs Tamaki by his ear. Ignoring his pained squawk, he chides, "Don't make the children uncomfortable."

Tamaki counters some very offended words, but Kosuke doesn't hear them, distracted by Haruhi. "I did not plan this."

"Do you ever?"

"Fair enough."

Hitsuji finally emerges from the bathroom, holding the front of his shirt in his little hands. "'M hungry."

"Straight to the point," Haruhi commends. She reaches down into the little bowl of sugar cookies. "Here you go, little guy."

Tamaki intercepts her, bending down in front of Hitsuji with another big, friendly smile. Hitsuji sort of just blinks at him. Tamaki is undeterred.

"And this must be the little king! I am at your service, Your Majesty." He finishes with one hand over his heart and the other offered upwards.

Hitsuji stares. And blinks. And slides behind Kosuke for protection.

Tamaki disintegrates in an instant.

"The kids are in good hands," Haruhi reassures her while her fiancé twitches on the floor. Hitsuji chomps down on the offered cookie. "Rest assured."

"Okay," Kosuke confirms. Remembering, she rolls her backpack off one shoulder and reaches in. "I have a list of likes and dislikes. I got snacks, dried strawberries and chips—the strawberries are for Minami, the chips are for Hitsuji. Books, puzzles—let Minami flip the pages and make sure Hitsuji doesn't scrape off the puzzle pictures. Minami brought one of her dressup dolls and she'll probably ask you to help her, but getting the boots on is tricky, so I'll show you how. Here is all our insurance information, in case anything goes wrong—"

"Kosuke."

"Yes."

"Do you not think you're freaking out just a little bit?"

Kosuke looks at her hands, now holding sheets of paper, two baggies of snacks, two books, three puzzle boxes, a doll and the doll's two plastic boots. "No."

"Re. _lax._ " Haruhi takes the pile from her gingerly, like a mother taking her child's blanket. "Now go get ready. It's almost seven."

It's been a while since Kosuke has bothered with eyeshadow or blush or lip gloss, but she makes it work in the little mirror inside the Fujioka's bathroom. Styling her hair results in two pink burns only covered by the resulting imperfect curls. The dress is the only clothing of her own she's worn in a while—she's even come to the apartment in one of her mother's flower-printed blouses and high-waisted pants. The dress is all-pink, very simple. It has a sweetheart neckline, but T-shirt sleeves of gossamer. She'd last worn it to a classmate's spring birthday party, but she thinks if she wore it to some late-night club in Tokyo, it wouldn't catch attention. Maybe heels would've been more fitting, but she slides on white flats instead.

It all takes longer than she thought. When she steps out, Ranka—he, the kids, Haruhi, and Tamaki have already sat down for dinner—coos. "Look at you! You're going to have boys tripping over their feet."

"Truly beautiful, Kosuke! You—" Tamaki's smile, charming but gentlemanly, drops. The look he gives Haruhi as she sets bowls on the table is pure alarm. "Haruhi, she needs protection!"

"Tamaki, she's just hanging out with her friends."

"No, Haruhi, he's right." And goodness, Ranka is serious! Deathly so. "You have no idea what kind of scum would try to sweep her away."

Haruhi's relationships with her father and fiancé are unique, Kosuke thinks. She loves them both dearly, but her face has 10,000 years of exhaustion. "Kosuke. Please stop them before they call a police squad."

_Actually, Haruhi, I'm not going to be with any friends. I'm going to go flirt and dance with a bunch of strangers for several hours because I'm in debt to a loan shark. They could be right. One of them might try to touch me, or kiss me, or pull me away where no one can see us. Maybe all of them will!_

"I can take care of myself, I promise. My mom taught me how to throw a punch."

Minami dutifully recites, "Never tuck your thumb into your fist."

Haruhi (who looks equal parts disturbed and impressed) says, "You should get going."

"Right."

Kosuke really hopes she's not pale or shaking. She goes to both of the children to kiss their heads and say goodbye, feeling like she's about to be lead into the electric chair. So nervous is she that she doesn't realize she's also kissed Haruhi and Tamaki both until after the fact.

Already having two very affectionate people in her life must have desensitized Haruhi, because all she gives is a slightly confused "bye"—and indeed, Tamaki is _glowing._ Kosuke is spared any mortification when Ranka makes an unhappy sound. So he gets a forehead kiss, too.

"Oh, wait!" Minami springs up from the table and goes to her bag, digging out a sheet of crumpled paper. It's folded over and only held shut with some tape. She gives it to Kosuke. "It's for Okina. Don't look at it!"

 _Kosuke_ knows that Minami is none-the-wiser about her plans, but…really? This is just cruel now.

"Sure," she says, and puts it in her little white purse with her phone and some money. Nothing else comes to stop her after that; she heads out the door with a stone in her belly.

* * *

The place is called the Blue Tower—many stories high, with all its corners lined in neon blue lights that are bright in the dusk sky, but blend into the rest of the Tokyo skyline. It's some sort of amalgamation of all things fun and deluxe. The topmost floors are hotel rooms, but there's also a restaurant, a sauna, an indoor pool, a rooftop garden, a casino, and an entire floor of rentable private party rooms. It's the kind of luxury Kosuke knew to be real but in an untouchable way that she'd never thought she'd actually encounter. Yes, the moon is also real, but Kosuke isn't going to the moon any time soon. So she feels like an astronaut when she walks in through the glass doors.

Kosuke knows it's not just going to be her, which makes her feel…2% better. There are two other girls waiting in the lobby, close but not speaking. The lobby is its own world of glassy floors and gilded walls and an indoor fountain large enough to swim in. It is all so stupidly _expensive-_ looking, Kosuke feels like she's about to be charged just for standing there.

One of the girls looks maybe a few years older than Kosuke. Her hair is impeccably straight and jet-black, with a cute, round face. She's wearing a blue dress that shimmers with her movement. The other girl can be anywhere from eighteen to twenty-five—delicately curling strawberry blonde hair and green eyes like glass, but in a short white dress that expertly highlights her willowy legs. She looks like a piece of Greek artwork and she seems to know it.

"Tsubaki?" the dark-haired one asks. It takes Kosuke a second to remember what her name of the evening is. She nods. "I'm Violet. That's Sina. You're with us tonight."

"Nice to meet you," Kosuke answers. Is there anything else to say?

Sina looks her over for a moment. She has an unnaturally still face. "Is this your first time?"

Either she's very calculating, or Kosuke's anxiety has reached neon sign levels. "Yes, it is."

"It's okay," Violet tells her with a little smile. Kosuke instantly knows her smile is one of her biggest pulls. "Don't be nervous. Just laugh along and try to have fun."

Kosuke is appreciative, but she also hopes that means she may not have to worry about any funny business.

Sina's… _advice_ is not as kindly. "Don't freak out or we'll have to make it up for you." And Kosuke can tell by her tone that "freaking out" may just mean letting her smile drop, or not blushing at an outright flirt.

It's advice, regardless. Kosuke nods her thanks. Sina isn't looking at her to see it.

Their company for the night arrive a short time later. There's four of them, all men in suits, the youngest in his twenties and the oldest maybe coming up on fifty. They pick them out of the stragglers in the lobby and approach. Violet and Sina perk up like flowers. Kosuke does the same.

One of the suits, a dark blue with a silvery tie to match, walks ahead of the others to greet them. He could be as old as thirty, but Kosuke thinks he has young eyes, somehow. "Good evening, ladies. Might you three be Violet, Sina, and Tsubaki?" They all nod, and the friendly-but-professional smile turns into a friendly-but-flirty one. "Excellent. Wonderful company after a dreadfully boring meeting."

Violet blushes, Sina tells him a gentle but confident "thank you," and Kosuke smiles as sweetly as she can. Maybe going for the shyness angle will help her mask the nervousness better.

The blue suit offers his arm to Sina, and a light gray one does the same for Rose. The last is the youngest, in a black three-piece and glasses and neat chestnut hair, and he comes to Kosuke with a smile that (admittedly) could make a girl go weak in the knees. Maybe even Kosuke's, if she were younger and not as paralyzed with anxiety. She still takes his arm, though. It's strange, the warmth of his body against hers.

The only one who stays put is the oldest man, who is neither smiling nor frowning. He instead turns on his heel and heads to the elevator they just emerged from. There's three girls and four men and perhaps four hours to go. Kosuke starts counting seconds.

* * *

It's almost like a game of improv. Their "partners" will say something, and then it's on Kosuke, Violet, or Sina to work off of it. They have roles: Violet is the eager-to-please bundle of energy, Sina is the calm and mature enigma, and Kosuke is the shy newcomer who cannot maintain eye contact. It's just one large play. Their names, words, and movements are all acts.

There is also an element of analysis. Kosuke and the other girls are being paid for the pleasure of their company—bad time equals a bad deal. This man wants to see you blush, this one wants to make you laugh, this one has already chosen his favorite, this one is just there for anything. You oblige without breaking character.

The Gray Suit—they surely say their names, but Kosuke loses them just as quickly—wants fun, fun, and fun. Let's do this slot machine, let's go down to the roulette wheel! The Black Suit is flirty but softspoken. Charming, even, and perhaps not at all a bad person—just a guy looking for a fun night with enjoyable company. The Blue Suit is really the flirt, all innuendos and low whispers. Kosuke stands up from sitting beside him once and feels a tug—he'd been touching her hair.

The oldest man keeps to himself, mostly. He's not unkind, but he doesn't play along with any games or jokes. He doesn't like to be ignored, however, and Kosuke and the others make a point to at least acknowledge him every now and then.

Most of their time is spent in the casino. Poker, pool, roulette, so on. When Kosuke accidentally rolls the cue ball into one of the holes, she blushes along with the ribbing. When one of the men makes a good play, she claps. She only says a shy 'no' when she's asked to pull down the arm of a slot machine, but her answer of not being old enough is taken.

Kosuke feels stupid. The whole thing is giving her flashbacks to her elementary plays, when she knew she was acting like a corny robot but was already too embarrassed to try any harder. Kosuke is not giggly, or blushy-shy. She's just badly pretending.

It's especially bad when she fails to get a laugh, or when her act gets exasperation instead of amusement. There are stumbles that turn her blushes real and earn her some unamused looks from Sina.

She's still horribly nervous, but Kosuke's not shaking. It's the _touching,_ the hands on her shoulders or arms, that sicken her. Or the passing looks of people who may know what's happening. Or the Blue Suit's occasional toe over the line.

She dismisses herself to go to the bathroom—another glower from Sina—locks herself in a stall, and breathes. She's not in danger, but she _doesn't want to be here._ She hates all this acting and touching and the fact that the _FRIGGIN'_ bathroom is one of the prettiest places she's ever been to. She's still sick with herself for doing this at all, for lying.

This reminds her of the letter Minami gave her—the one for Okina. She still doesn't know why Minami would write one at all.

The letter is suddenly in her grasp, out of the purse. She knows she promised she wouldn't, but she's already opening it.

_Dear Okina,_

_Hi! I can't go with Kosuke to the party cause you guys are big kids and you will be out too late. I am sorry I can't see you. I hope you are okay._

_Thank you for taking Kosuke to a party. I think it has been a long time since she has been to one. I think she is lonely even though she has a new friend called Haruhi now. Haruhi's really nice and fun but maybe Kosuke still misses you. I miss you too but I know you can't come over anymore cause you live too far away. Maybe you have new friends too. I don't want to be mean but can you please invite Kosuke to more parties or call her on the phone? I think it will make her happy. She doesn't smile a lot any more. Please have fun at your party._

_Love, Minami_

* * *

They ask her to sing karaoke songs. She sings.

They share stories about their colleagues. She laughs.

They compliment her hair, her laugh, her legs. She blushes.

On and on it goes, the minutes stretching longer, past midnight and onward still. Two are drunk, everyone is tired. Why don't they just stop?

Kosuke wishes that she really _was_ on a trip with old friends. Even if it entailed Jet's boundless energy or Tomoko's disinterest—or an awkward blanket over her, Kohta, and Okina. It would be leagues better than this. Plus, her stories of late-night adventures to Haruhi and the children would be _real._

The oldest man clears his throat a little past twelve-thirty and declares that he's heading off. The others don't argue for him to stay. Not long after, the Black Suit declares that it's time to wrap things up. The Blue Suit and the Gray Suit protest, but are beaten without any argument, really.

It's only when they give her the 76,000 yen, divided between them, that Kosuke feels relief. The Suits thank the girls for their company, and Kosuke again wonders if the Black Suit is a fine man after all. They depart, the girls not even looking at each other, and Kosuke _breathes._ She did it. She has 76,000 yen. That's a whole week and then some for the shark.

She stands outside the Blue Tower to hail a taxi cab. As simple as her dress is, she doesn't fit in with the sleek-dressed men and women who pass through the doors, but she can't be paid to care anymore. Kosuke doesn't fit in anywhere in this part of Tokyo, with its skyscrapers and neon lights. The money is heavy in her purse, and soon she'll be at the Fujioka's apartment, slipping in next to the children and drifting off to safe sleep.

"Waiting for a cab?"

Kosuke almost jumps out of her _skin._

It's the Blue Suit. Her "least favorite" of them, to put it lightly. He'd touched her hair and complimented her legs and always, even for the most simple things, leaned into whisper in her ear.

Can Kosuke just walk away? Judging by his red face and swaying stance, he's still very drunk. Would he try to grab her? Did the website allow reviews, and would he leave a nasty one for her, ruining her chances of—wait, no. She's not doing this ever again. How the hell is that one of her priorities?

"Yes," she answers with her sugary and fake smile. "Just trying to get home."

"Where do you live?"

What does it matter? "It's a good distance out there." She giggles. Ugh.

She stops giggling when he comes closer.

Then she turns ice-cold when his hand presses against the small of her back.

She can feel the clamminess of it through the dress.

Once again he whispers to her, and the warmth of his breath against her cheek makes her nauseous. More so, because Kosuke realizes she's suddenly very, very sick.

"Why don't you come to my house, instead? It's closer."

Where is a damn cab? Where? Why is one taking so long to show?

(Why did she give the loan shark money?)

Kosuke is panicking. She can feel it like a hard, relentless shaking. She's alone, no familiar faces around for miles, and a very drunk man is breathing on her, touching her, and wants to get her dress off of her. Every instinct in her is yelling to run, or punch him _and_ run. Do something. But she has to think. If she makes a scene, he might get rough with her. Would anyone help, or would they just look and sneer before carrying on? How much faith can Kosuke put into the passerby?

"My family would worry about me."

Now he's holding her arm. "You're safe with me, I promise."

Alright. Screw it. "Please let go of me."

"No need to be scared!" He _laughs._ "Look, I'll even pay you extra."

Kosuke tries to tug her arm back, but his grip tightens. She has to _fight_ to keep her breath even, because her heart is beating faster and she feels tight all over but the last thing she wants to do is let her fear manifest into pathetic tears and pleads. "I said _let go—"_

Someone calls a name: _his_ name. Kosuke still doesn't care to catch it.

It's a group of more men in suits, maybe six, and probably from the same meeting Kosuke's group was in. One has his jacket over his arm, but otherwise they seem composed. They must have just been coming out of the lobby.

The one who called—it's the Black Suit, did he meet up with them?—says, "What are you doing?"

The Blue Suit—whose face had just started to twist into annoyance, only making Kosuke panic more—turns, blinks, and smiles. He completely misses the edge of warning in his colleague's voice, letting go of her arm (the skin is left moist) and sauntering their way. Almost as if Kosuke was never there at all. "Hey, fellas! How was _your_ night?"

A cab—oh, thank you—finally pulls up to the curb. Kosuke doesn't hesitate for a second. She flies into it, drowning, and tells the driver the address of the apartment complex in a voice almost too rushed to comprehend. He does. Kosuke is taken away from the Blue Tower and the Blue Suit. She's Alice going back through the looking glass. It's over.

By the time she makes it back, her hands are shaking, and she realizes that 76,000 yen isn't much at all.


	8. The Ironic Thing

The ironic thing is that Kyoya had spent the majority of his life convinced that he was never going to fall in love.

It wasn't that he didn't believe love existed; of course it did. Just by the number of galas and weddings and even debutante balls he'd attended, he'd probably met more people than most did in their lives. So he'd met many married couples and engaged couples and several young lovers just beginning their relationships. He had met many deep in love with each other. He saw the tender touches and longing looks. If he tried, he might even remember a time when his own parents were so enamored.

But his oldest brother's marriage was arranged, and so was his other brother's, and so was his sister's, and Kyoya had all reason to believe his would be the same. Even as the third-born son, he could secure a partnership beneficial to the Ootoris.

Yes, some arranged marriages were perfect. Some were even partnerships between couples already in love. Sometimes they fell in love while engaged. Sometimes they fell in love after the wedding. And yes, others still _collapsed_ after the union, but perhaps that is simply life, not necessarily arrangements badly thought out.

If you have a family like Kyoya's, the first thing considered is business, not feelings. Fuyumi was lucky to fall in love with her husband. Yuuichi and Akito get along with their wives well enough. That was fortune. It was good if you got along well with the person you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with. It just wasn't necessary.

For Kyoya, he never thought he'd be in such a position as his siblings. He'd never felt romantic feelings for _anyone,_ point and period. He was going to marry a woman and live in, at most, civil matrimony. This didn't bother him. It was just how life would go. Between a happily ever after for himself and security for Ootori Medical and the hundreds that it employed, the latter took priority. Kyoya never expected to fall for another person in his life.

No, as it turns out. Kyoya is not just in love with one, but _two_ different people.

Their names are Tamaki Suoh and Haruhi Fujioka, but soon the latter will be Haruhi Suoh.

Is this even possible, loving two people at once? He's certainly never heard of such a thing, not outside of the realm of romantic fiction and such. It sounds like such a tedious, complicated thing.

It is. Very much so, because Kyoya's head has had thoughts of it bouncing around inside like pachinko balls.

Does Kyoya instead have feelings for one, but was only truly in love with the other? Which one is which? How would he be able to tell the difference? He's known Tamaki longer, but does time factor so heavily into this? Would that mean he doesn't love Haruhi as much? Which one of them was the "runner-up"? In the hypothetical scenario, who would he… _choose?_

It might be an easier pill to swallow if he knew when it was official. There are some obvious answers.

A long time ago, even though Kyoya's fists were balled into his shirt collar and he was shaking with rage, actually wondering himself if he was going to lose control and punch the infuriating Chairman's son in the face, Tamaki had somehow peeled back every one of his layers and made him realize what he'd never known about himself. " _You're_ the one who's given up." Maybe that was it.

A long time ago, after his father had struck him hard enough to send his glasses to the floor and made it so clear how much of an utter disappointment he was, not even bothering to face him as he said it, Haruhi had unashamedly let it be known how much she disagreed. "I think Kyoya is great." Maybe that was it.

Or maybe it was neither.

Oddly, he _does_ know the moment when he realized Tamaki and Haruhi would inevitably be together. True,Tamaki had been reduced to a blushing puddle that early day when she'd emerged from the dressing rooms in the school's female uniform, and many times thereafter. That wasn't necessarily love, however—that was too soon for that. It took longer.

Even when it _did_ become love, Kyoya had wondered if Tamaki would ever come to terms with it. To be honest, he still didn't know why the poor fool ever tried so hard to deny it. The closest he could decide was that Tamaki was so mindful of upkeeping the "family" that having romantic feelings for Haruhi had subconsciously unnerved him. Not that that excused his bullheadedness that had all of them pulling their hair out. Or explained why he called Haruhi his daughter. Or Kyoya the mother.

It was when he saw the look on Haruhi's face when she heard how Tamaki was leaving for France with his fiancé. The shock, the hurt. That was it.

So maybe it was only after that that Kyoya knew his own feelings, because he doesn't remember it hurting so much before then. He hadn't felt pangs of jealousy when they were together. He hadn't felt pangs of jealousy for many things in his life.

In truth, Kyoya had never felt such fondness for anyone before Tamaki, preferring the company of books over his classmates. The closest he was to anyone was Fuyumi, and that came with the territory of being siblings, he thought. So either he was so unused to such warm affection from an outsider and didn't realize that he was in love, or his lack of experience _caused_ him to fall in love.

"In love" is awfully strong phrasing, too. When Kyoya hears those words, he thinks of burning passion and dependence, two people serving as the other's halves. He doesn't _need_ Tamaki or Haruhi to live. He doesn't anguish in longing when they are gone, or scream in delight when they return. Kyoya is not someone to be dependent on others just to feel happiness.

 _But…_ He'd always felt a little victorious when he cracked a smile out of them. Tamaki's penchant for latching onto him (and all others) would always be tiring, but touch isn't _always_ bad. Haruhi is a bit more reserved with blatant physical affections, so the few touches they'd shared were almost "special."

It is easy to admire Tamaki's undaunted determination to help others, how much he _cared_ without being asked. It isn't just his looks that pulled people to him like moth to flame. Despite how unfair his life has been to him, Tamaki always makes it his goal to have others be happy. Always has. He's sensitive and emotional—surely too much for his own good—but not without his edges. Especially when it comes to his friends, Tamaki could be a force to be reckoned with. Kyoya would not soon forget the two students Renge had "casted" for her little film. They were lucky Haruhi intercepted.

Haruhi can read even the most reserved person (see: Kyoya) like an open book. Except herself, ironically. She had little patience for the many things the Club had entailed—from the twins' everyday mischief to kidnappings to the beach—but powered on and saw things through. She'd always been curious about the others' lives and stories, but that curiosity stemmed from caring. Haruhi did not ogle or pry at things, she sought to know the root of problems, and perhaps find a way to help.

Two people, very different but very alike, and Kyoya had to go and fall for both of them and lacked the sense to realize it until they had gotten together at long last.

It started after the Fair and only grew from there: an odd, hot ache when Kyoya saw Tamaki's loud squeaks of affection become quiet looks, or Haruhi's nonchalant exchanges gain a tint to her cheeks. Kyoya thought at first it was impatience. He and the others were equally eager for the two of them to hurry up and make it official. Then they did, and the ache stayed, and Kyoya thought maybe he was disappointed because he'd been entertained in secret. Those were the most logical conclusions he had.

One morning when he's talking with Fuyumi over the phone—she calls almost daily—he tells her how Tamaki and Haruhi are finally using the "boyfriend/girlfriend" labels and Fuyumi responds, "You know, Father says he was considering arranging the two of you together. How awkward would that have been?"

First thought: Why.

Second thought: Disappointment.

Third thought: Why the disappointment?

He tries to imagine married life with Haruhi. He imagines waking up in the same bed, sleepy afternoons, wedding rings, _the_ wedding, Haruhi in a white dress, candlelit dinners, walking arm-in-arm or hand-in hand. Then he goes into more dire territory—children, anniversarys, the two growing gray-haired together—and he goes back to simple things. Kyoya calling her "my wife" and Haruhi calling him "my husband."

He is simultaneously bewildered—Haruhi being with him? Kyoya happily married? Tamaki, heartbroken? No—and unbothered.

Pleased, even.

No. Haruhi and Tamaki are together now; it is set. It is a fact of life.

Thinking about Tamaki somehow, inexplicably, unthinkably has him thinking everything he's just thought, but with _him_ instead.

Why.

Disappointment.

Why the disappointment?

What is HAPPENING?

When he finally figured out what he feels for both Tamaki and Haruhi goes beyond friendship, Kyoya had no idea what the hell he was going to _do._ Confess? To both of them? While they were happy together, and Kyoya couldn't explain his own heart?

Why, why, why, why, why did this have to happen to him? Kyoya had been prepared. He'd been prepared for Tamaki and Haruhi to be together, and for himself to marry a girl that would primarily benefit Ootori Medical. She was just a faceless vision in his mind, because nothing about her looks, personality, or character would matter. It was not about him.

Then this had to just throw a wrench in everything. He didn't even have anyone to talk to. He wasn't close to any of the others, he'd never had such a conversation with Fuyumi. There was no one else. Fuyumi's only guess for why their father considered setting him up with Haruhi was that he thought they'd be happy together—which was _hilarious._

Kyoya can only bear with it all by himself. He can manage that. It hurts, and he has no idea what he's doing, but he has no other choice.

This is all so stupid, regardless. Him, Kyoya Ootori, brought down at last by heartbreak, reduced to cry-eating ice cream and burning old photographs.

One day Tamaki pulls him out to dinner—at a fastfood joint courtesy of Tamaki's relentless love for almost all things "commoner"—and while finishing their greasy cheeseburgers and oversalted fries, goes deathly serious and declares, "I'm going to ask Haruhi to marry me."

So. Problem solved.

* * *

Buying and selling Ootori Medical back to the family was the hardest, most satisfying, and dumbest thing Kyoya hasd ever done.

Hardest because the Grand Tonnerre Group were as stubborn and prideful as the very business they were trying to get their hands on. Kyoya had pulled so many strings he nearly tangled his fingers together. The Fair and a thousand watching eyes were no help.

Satisfying because to at least himself, Kyoya thought he did it. He'd finally proven that third-born son or not, he was something to be both valued and feared. He knew how to play the game. He'd be lying if the fact that not too long before the deal was made, his father had struck him across the face and called him a disappointment in front of everyone…made him feel a little smug.

Dumbest because for once in his life, Kyoya Ootori got naïve. He was by no means expecting his father to kneel and kiss his toes and beg forgiveness. He'd have been shocked to even get a verbal thanks. Still, in the days that followed, his father's appraising looks almost made him feel secure. If not outright praise, then perhaps Yoshio would grant his son some respect for his actions. Kyoya did not gloat, but he knew he had done right.

That stage had passed, however, and Yoshio had realized that his son—his son he never had to worry about, who was always so predictable—had gotten a checkmate. Everyone knew it, too, and would call him foolish for not taking advantage of his son's skills.

So, he gives Kyoya the offer to benefit them both:

"If you can prove yourself ready for the responsibility, I'll bring you in favor for a position as respectable as your brothers'. You could very well be partners one day. But I am not going to _give_ it to you. You will do what needs to be done and whatever is asked of you. Ootori Medical is your first and foremost priority from now on. Only after abiding by this will I even consider it."

And like a desperate fool, Kyoya answers, "Yes, Father."

So now Kyoya's every moment is Ootori Medical. From the crack of dawn to the next, Kyoya is overseeing developments and attending meetings and approving invoices and shaking hands and proposing deals and listening, listening, listening.

An outsider would think he is in a controlling role, but Kyoya is just a shadow, only speaking when asked. His closet collects dust in favor of pressed suits. His neck aches from hours on end of hunching over papers. Really, he is only Kyoya in the privacy of his own room. Elsewise, his personality is "business." The mask is almost becoming physical.

It is everything he had ever expected, however. His life is _supposed_ to be this; he'd trained so vigorously for it. A test he'd studied cover-to-cover for. Yoshio knows this.

So he doubles down.

It's two in the morning. Go home, get some sleep, and be back at six.

There's no time to eat. Meet me downstairs in three minutes.

Go tell these four people they've been fired. Be back in ten minutes.

Kyoys does it all too eagerly. Even when his feet are sore from walking nine hours straight, or his head is lolling from lack of sleep, or the slightest sound becomes as loud as a bomb, he keeps going because this has to be it. His final break, presented to him on a silver platter. All he has to do is sweat some, lose a few hours' sleep.

Given, Kyoya is not sure why he was so desperate for it before, but _now_ he can confidently say it is to prove Yoshio wrong.

* * *

Fuyumi is not someone he can see every day. She already lives so far away, already a busy woman by all definitions. Not as a businesswoman, granted, but a socialite. However, she _is_ someone who tries to see Kyoya whenever possible.

Lunch, for example. Kyoya doesn't know if Fuyumi is aware of their father's soft spot for her or not—he'd have given a hard 'no' to anyone else asking for Kyoya's time. For her, though, Kyoya finds himself sitting across from her at twelve o'clock on the dot in a café that just opened in town.

"I think it's cute," Fuyumi says as she looks around the place. The flowers are somehow fresh, the linen cloths soft, the gold lights overhead inviting. She would not have called it anything else if it wasn't so tiny. "Like a cottage."

Kyoya leans away from the waiter, who has brushed against his side three times now. "I suppose."

Fuyumi pouts and folds her arms. She's in a thick sweater and slacks, gloves and a scarf, but all in pastels of pink and purple. Spring colors in winter is a trend now, apparently. "Oh, come on, Kyoya. Why so sour?"

Kyoya pointedly ignores the phone that chimes on the table, like an impatient child. He at least tried to set aside work calls for his sister, but today was not the day for it. "It would have been nice if you'd given me a word of notice beforehand, Fuyumi. Today is a busy day."

" _Every_ day is a busy day. Tell me which one would have been more preferable."

None, but then again: Kyoya is just as incapable of telling Fuyumi no as his father is. She seems unaware. He'll keep it that way.

Fuyumi continues, "I'm happy for you, Kyoya, but I'm scared you're going to collapse from stress."

"How fortunate, then, that I work in a hospital."

"That's not funny!" Their waiter sets down a steaming cup of tea in front of her, but Fuyumi doesn't notice. "You need to start being easier on yourself."

Time #4 of the waiter brushing him. "I will when work starts needing less. Or when Mr. Domen come to see reason."

DomenMed is a massively important part of Ootori Medical. Not the company itself, but a leg of the table. As of late, their head, Daisuke Domen, has been loudly disagreeable with Yoshio, threatening to withdraw. Perhaps Yoshio would have been more wary if this hadn't happened a dozen times before now. All Yoshio has to do is be reassuring, but that entails all performances being flawless—Kyoya's included.

"You know what? Let's not talk about work. How has school been?"

"The same as usual."

"What about your friends? I haven't heard about the 'Zukas in forever."

"Mori and Hani are both busy. They seem fine when I see them."

"What about the Hitachiins? I know the two are finally starting to split up a bit, but I heard their first line was a success."

"Yes, very much so. Their second is already in production."

_Don't ask about Haruhi or Tamaki. Don't ask about Haruhi or Tamaki. Don't ask about Haruhi or Tamaki. Don't ask about Haruhi or Tamaki. Don't ask about Haruhi or Tamaki._

"And Tamaki and Haruhi?"

"Still engaged."

Suddenly, Fuyumi sets her teacup down with a hard _clack._ She's angry, but her angry look is about as intimidating as a pouting puppy."Kyoya, can you please talk to me? I'm just asking questions over and over here."

Kyoya sighs, but complies—he doesn't want to be cold to Fuyumi, but it's been a few years since he's felt like some small talk. Not to mention the added context of this topic. "Haruhi has agreed to have the wedding in France. Now it's just a matter of planning everything else."

"Will Tamaki's grandmother be coming?"

"I think so. They've seemed to have buried the hatchet. I'm not sure she'll be so pleased with Anne-Sophie attending."

The phone buzzes. Kyoya's hand twitches to answer it. He doesn't.

Fuyumi smiles on her teacup's brim. "Let me guess who Tamaki's asked to be his best man."

"'Asked' is a weak word. 'Demanded' is a better fit."

There'd been no room for argument. Tamaki needed Kyoya as his Best Man the way a drowning man needed a lifesaver, it seemed. Kyoya hadn't even protested, but Tamaki had still cried regardless. Because Tamaki is just like that.

Fuyumi is just the same, because already she's starry-eyed and smiling. "I think it's just amazing, Kyoya. Such a huge day in someone's life, and to be right beside them for it…"

Kyoya knows she doesn't know any better, but this is one of those moments where it seems the universe is laughing at him. It's such an important day, Kyoya, you should be happy for them, so why aren't you? Are you jealous of Haruhi? Of Tamaki?

"Are you alright? You're not eating."

Sure enough, his food has arrived, and Kyoya hadn't even noticed. It looks appetizing, for a new, tiny restaurant with square footage that probably violates safety regulations. Coughing quick, he picks up his fork. "I'm fine; just thinking."

She hums. Her lips have quirked up in an almost catlike smirk. "Jealous?"

It's a wonderful thing he hasn't taken a bit yet, because he would have definitely choked just now. Kyoya blinks twice before he finally manages to say, "What?"

"I get it." Fuyumi's smirk changes into a nostalgic kind of smile as she cuts up her chicken. She isn't looking at him anymore. "When I was watching all my friends getting married, I was waiting for my turn, too."

Oh. "I'm not jealous."

"Getting used to it, then?"

"I'm not upset, Fuyumi."

She blinks, and Kyoya inwardly chides himself. He hadn't meant to snap.

Then Fuyumi just asks, "So can I ask what you're thinking about?"

Kyoya has never resisted Fuyumi's reaching out to him, or her attempts to hold up a traditional, open sibling bond. In their childhood, perhaps the Ootori children had all been the ragtag sort of close siblings who would play together and rib each other. As they grew older, however, they were all introduced to the world the Ootori name entailed, and that name became one of the only things that bound them. Really, Kyoya's brothers were more like business associates now. Only Fuyumi attempts to keep them close, and Kyoya has always been the easiest to manage that with—young and not yet involved in Ootori Medical.

So Kyoya doesn't feel uncomfortable confiding in Fuyumi, but it feels stupid to even say it out loud. He could say it to his own reflection and he'd feel bile in his throat. "I'm in love with Haruhi _and_ Tamaki—now they're getting married, and I don't even know how to feel about it."

Instead, he says, "It's odd to think Father wanted to arrange me with Haruhi. That's all."

Fuyumi nods like he said it in a much more dramatic tone. "Ah, so that's it. I'm sure it's strange to imagine."

Strange indeed. "Yes. I don't know why Father would come up with such an idea."

"I told you, I think he just thought you'd be happy with her."

"Haruhi doesn't come from high standing." At the offended look he gets, Kyoya goes on, "I'm not trying to speak badly of her, that's just a fact. Being with her wouldn't benefit the Ootori Group, which would be Father's priority."

"Has it occurred to you that maybe he places your happiness above the company?" It's very good that Fuyumi keeps talking, because Kyoya doesn't want to burst her bubble with so many people around them. He just wishes she could have said something else. "I am curious, though…Did you ever like Haruhi? I know Tamaki is your best friend, but it seemed you and her always got along a little better than the others."

Kyoya is very aware of that. _Too_ aware of that. He's not lonely, but it's a simple fact that he doesn't have many people he would consider close friends. Haruhi and Tamaki are the closest he's ever been to anyone. It seems incredibly unfair that he had to fall in love with them. Getting close to Haruhi had surprised him, even, because he was sure that Tamaki was the only person who could worm his way to Kyoya's side with sheer determination. Haruhi, though, she is as opposite of Tamaki as Kyoya is, softspoken and mature and—

Everything about this is oxymoronic. Falling for Haruhi makes perfect sense and not at all.

"Haruhi is certainly a friend, but if you're asking if I felt anything other than platonic for her, then the answer is no. She's someone whose company I enjoy."

"That's good, then. Can't imagine how awkward it would have been…That being said! Is there any girl that you _do_ like? At work? At school?" She's trying so hard to be casual, but she's _glowing._ So excited to know. She managed to make it through his high school years, but now she is desperate to see her youngest brother with whatever lucky lady life threw his way.

Kyoya disappoints her. "No."

Like the flick of a switch: disappointed. "No one?"

"No one." Kyoya finally takes a bite of food, but he's too distracted to even taste it—by his own thoughts, by the buzzing phone, by Fuyumi's woeful expression. "Regardless of why he would have considered me and Haruhi together, I'm sure Father will find someone more fitting for me to be with. When he does, I'll focus on getting along with her."

Fuyumi perks up again. "Are you excited about that? Meeting someone you like?"

No. He'd met a person opposite his personality and a person opposite his upbringing and knowing that he fell for _them,_ Kyoya is very stressed to imagine that if— _if_ —he ever finds someone else that his naïve heart sings for, they will also somehow be his opposite. He doesn't have the strength or patience for that, let alone to be excited for it.

He's carefully put aside thinking about his possible future marriage. All he knows is that it won't be Tamaki or Haruhi, so why even bother fantasizing about the lucky girl he'll be spending the rest of his days with?

"I trust Father's judgement to make the best match, so yes, I'd be interested in finding out more about her personality."

It's a bland answer, but Fuyumi takes it enthusiastically. Her unending concern about each and every one of his relationships is simultaneously kind and annoying.

They spend a stretch just sitting there and eating, but that makes it harder to ignore his phone. His father knows where he is, so no doubt he's being bombarded with everything to take care of the second he gets back. Kyoya's always been a quick thinker, but he's not a computer. He has to carefully consider his decisions and timing.

The waiter comes to take their plates—brush #5—and Fuyumi suddenly looks…thoughtful. She isn't looking at Kyoya anymore, instead at the flowers picked from the indoor rooftop garden. Kyoya is awaiting to hear her next words.

"Kyoya?"

"Yes?"

"Have you…heard from Mother recently?"

Alright.

He was _not_ expecting that.

Though it… _has_ been on his mind lately. Jin Ootori has always been a busy woman. Yoshio's always been the one who stayed put while his wife took care of the mobile side of the business: meetings, weddings, on-site evaluations, etc. For all Kyoya's life, he'd say that maybe half of it had his mother away for work. This might have been why she and her husband's relationship had started its sure decline.

Still…She'd at least attempted to stay in touch when she could. Jin was ten times as close to her children as her husband, not that the sum was anything monumental. She loathed missing so much of their lives, so their visits and talks were all about catching up and staying updated. Even if it was as simple as a text message bidding them a good night.

Since she'd departed three weeks ago for oversea matters, however…

Nothing.

No postcards, no calls, no text messages.

Kyoya is concerned, but at the same time, he would know if his mother was in any trouble. No doubt she's safe, so if she's too busy to keep in contact, that's fine. He's busy, himself.

"No," he answers, "But I'm sure she's fine."

Fuyumi nods. "Yeah. Of course."

* * *

When the news of Tamaki and Haruhi's engagement had spread, there had been much rejoicing from—well, everyone.

Ranka was happy. Anne-Sophie and Yuzuru were happy. Shizue was alright with it. Ouran University, with the vast majority of its students from the Academy, had been bursting at the seams with jubilation. It seemed every single student was buzzing about the Prince and the Natural looking towards the "happiest day of their lives", what the ceremony would be like, and a bit more invasive matters like their future children and such.

The Host Club—

Firstly, the Host Club had officially dissolved after Haruhi and the twins' third year. Its four eldest members no longer counted as Academy students, so instead of customers being charged to see their preferred Host, they were instead charged for participating in Club events and meetings. There was disorganization, and a slight drop in business from customers not happy they could no longer buy one-on-one time, but it was still the Host Club. Fun, entertaining, relaxing.

But then Haruhi and the twins graduated, too, and no more excuses could be made for non-Academy students being in an Academy club. If others wanted to inherit the title, create the next generation of Hosts, that was fine—but by Kyoya's second year at Ouran University, none had appeared. Now the Hosts' schedules were simply too different to organize a regular plan to have meetings and events.

Despite the 'Club' title being taken away, they are still bound together. Club meetings and events became dinners, movie nights, mall trips, visits to the beach and the mountains and whatever else—thankfully not as impromptu as they once were. University students even act as though they'd never split apart to begin with.

So everyone was still together to react to the news, and it wasn't cheer so much as relief. "Finally." Hani was bouncing off the walls with joy—he was engaged to Reiko now, but they had agreed to wait a year or two after graduation to marry. Mori had made his approval, however stoic, known. Kaoru and Hikaru were both in agreement that Tamaki had waited way, way, way too long to pop the question.

(Hikaru's feelings for Haruhi seemed to have fully returned to friendship. Kyoya wonders how hard that must have been for him…but he is _not_ going to ask.)

In typical Host Club fashion, everything was set into motion from the very first second. Hani wanted to know if they had already come up with wedding cake ideas. Reiko was curious about the venue. Renge—

Who, note, came out of _nowhere._

—needed every single detail of how the proposal happened.

The twins offered their help. Both out of the kindness of their hearts and their unceasing hunger for mischief.

" _No way in hell,"_ are the very first words Haruhi says the second the drawing comes up on the screen. She and Tamaki are on one side, the twins the other, and the stenciled idea for the dress is in the middle in all its horror.

Kyoya knows a joke when he sees it. Because there really is _no way in hell_ that Haruhi—who always preferred the most simple and convenient of options—is going to walk down the aisle in the seven-foot-wide monstrosity of taffeta skirts and a high collar of diamonds he's looking at.

"You're the bride," Kaoru defends. "All eyes are supposed to be on you."

Hikaru—Kyoya now confidently knows it's Hikaru, because in his third year of high school, he'd dyed his hair chestnut brown—adds, "You want them to give them something to remember."

Tamaki looks like he's wondering if it's possible to strangle someone via wireless connection. "If she wears that, she'll no doubt trip and fall, and if that happens, _I will hold YOU TWO solely responsible!"_

Kyoya offers his two cents. "It's not Haruhi's style—but you already knew that, which is why you're showing this in the first place."

He knows he's being snippy, but he can't help it. It hasn't just been a long week, it's been a long trimester. A long year. He is in a very rare moment of reprieve. He is in his room, at his desk, his bed just five feet away and calling out to him. He must ignore it, however, because after so many times of telling them he won't be able to make it to their get-togethers, his friends have made it very clear that they are put up with his absence.

Kyoya knows they care. It's just that _demanding_ that he take part in this video chat after a thirteen-hour shift, two firings, and a very heated meeting with the Domens isn't very _caring._ Haruhi at least protested, but it was for naught.

Kaoru glowers at him from his window in the screen. "Are you meaning to insult our hard work, Kyoya?"

"I think he is," Hikaru sniffs. "Keep that up and see if we're going to do the same for your special day."

"That's not as much of a threat as you think it is."

"Can you please show me the actual design?" Haruhi sighs.

Hikaru looks down, and the clicks of a keyboard can be heard. "Just a second…"

The circus tent of a dress flits away for the next one. Except it's not a dress. It is the perfect example of what a showgirl would wear: a rhinestone bikini with enormous plumes of white tailfeathers. The featureless model it's drawn on is even striking the one-hand-on-the-head, other-hand-on-the-hip pose.

Haruhi's screen goes black. It takes some frantic text messaging from an enraged Tamaki for her to log back on, and she still looks like she'd welcome Death if he appeared in front of her.

Now Kyoya is very sure that Tamaki is about to leave so he can hunt down the twins for their blood. "You _PERVERTS!_ "

Kaoru: "This is a very lucrative offer we're making you, Boss! Do you have any idea how expensive a dress like this would be?"

Hikaru: "This is _at least_ five thousand diamond rhinestones."

Haruhi looks close to logging off once more. "I can tell you really thought about me when you designed this."

"We did," Hikaru insists. "Look, we even made the top high-collar so as not to draw attention to your—"

For once, Tamaki's withering look silences the Hitachiin. Comments about Haruhi's form have always infuriated him. Comments about Haruhi's form after their official engagement send him into a _pitch-black rage._

"—shoes. We're still working on the shoes."

Tamaki's eyes turn on him. "Kyoya. Please."

Kyoya pushes his glasses up his nose. His nerves are really being tapdanced on. "Haruhi and Tamaki are on this call to discuss very important developments for a very important day, not to take part in your immature jokes."

There is a pause. Instead of the twins looking properly chided and Tamaki and Haruhi looking thankful, all four sets of eyes on the computer blink at him. Kyoya can't hear his own voice to know, but did he snap too harshly? Did he yell, or was his tone just so cutting?

It's Haruhi who breaks the silence. "Please. I am _begging_ you guys to show me an actual dress."

"Alright." Hikaru moves once again. "Actual dress."

The showgirl costume goes and the dress comes. Yes, actual dress. Column, a little silvery belt at the waist, round collar. A layered veil falls from the silhouette's crown. Finally, Haruhi looks pleased.

"We tried to keep it simple, like you said." Kaoru points to the top of his head. "The veil is just there for show. Don't pay mind to it."

Tamaki at last smiles. "Very nicely done, you two."

Hikaru asks, "What do you think, Haruhi?"

In the window showing Haruhi's face, she's nodding, but Kyoya can see the hesitation in her eyes. The design is lovely, yes, but something doesn't quite satisfy her. "I like it! You both did a really good job. I like the—color."

It's white. Because it's a wedding dress. Kyoya bites back another sigh. "Haruhi, this is _your_ wedding day. It's fine to have some critiques."

Tamaki also picks up on his fiancées lack of complete satisfaction. "This dress is being made just for you. If there's something you don't like, you can say so."

Haruhi still hesitates for a second. Thankfully, though, she finally admits, "I think I kind of want the waist to be a little more…You know." She makes a vaguely bell-like shape with her hands. "But not really poofy."

From somewhere in his room, Kaoru withdraws a notebook and scribbles something down, murmuring under his breath. "A-line."

"And I want lace, after all. I know I said I didn't, but—"

"Your dress," affirms Hikaru. "What about the belt? Yes, or no?"

"Mm…"

"No. Gotcha."

Kyoya oh-so wishes he was not taking part in this. He knows very much about the names and businesses of the fashion world but very little about judging fashion himself. The bride, groom, and designers are here, so he doesn't understand why the best man needs to be here as well. Also, again: he is very bizarrely in love with said bride and groom both. Helping with wedding preparations in any form is painful.

Yet—he is still _happy_ , somehow, in some small part, to be here. If he could go back in time and take back every time he called the Host Club frivolous or unnecessary…No, that was true. It was. Still, he'd have said it much more fondly. He'd spent so many days simply in the company of his friends, caring so much about things like figuring out what Haruhi is scared of, or helping Nekozawa with his little sister, or helping some struggling lovebirds. Now he's taking part in Ootori Medical each and every minute, and he knows for a fact he's being pulled away from everyone.

No, no. This is not a problem. Kyoya is very fortunate to have the opportunity he does at Ootori Medical. The real world doesn't care about scheduling around your get-togethers and video chats. He can be pleased to spend time with his friends while also acknowledging how his time could be spent more wisely.

Tamaki and Haruhi are together and they will be for the rest of their lives. That is why Kyoya is taking part in conversation about their wedding attire. He wonders how many times he's going to have to remind himself of it until his heart actually registers that it's true.

"Kyoya? You okay?"

He's getting awfully distracted as of late. He hadn't noticed, but the dress had gone, and now Kyoya is looking at many, many flowers. There's a larger picture of a red rose and a white rose to the left, and rows of other flowers to the right. He supposes these are possible combinations.

"I'm fine. Did you say something?"

"What do you think about the third row?"

Kyoya looks. It's baby's breath, desert bluebells, and rhododendrons. "I don't think the blue fits with the other colors."

"That's what I was thinking," Tamaki affirms. There's something off in his voice.

"So the second one is our best bet for now." Kyoya only gets a glimpse at it—baby's breath, anemons, and daisies—before Hikaru returns to the dress. "Noted."

"Excuse me," Tamaki cuts in. "If no one else minds—especially you, Haruhi—could we maybe take a break for a minute?"

The way Haruhi says "yeah" is in that tone like she thinks Tamaki is thinking what she's thinking. Kyoya doesn't know what they're thinking. Or what the twins are thinking, because they don't protest.

Kyoya, confused, asks, "Is something wrong?"

"Not at all. It's just been a while since we've all been around to get caught up with each other." Tamaki smiles in a way that is, for once, just a little forced. "Hikaru, Kaoru, how's production going?"

"Here, hold on."

Hikaru pulls up another picture. It's of two of their outfits, proudly displayed in some unknown boutique from behind a pane of glass. The twins definitely have the skills to take part in, or even inherit, the Hitachiins' fashion business. It seems they've made flowers their signature, no doubt with some help from their grandmother. The dress is high-necked and long-sleeved, white and patterned with anemones, bellflowers, and perennial geraniums—red, blue, and yellow. The suit beside it has the same pattern. It's beautiful work. Kyoya has no idea why he's looking at it.

Kaoru grins from ear-to-ear. "Ta-dah!"

Haruhi oohs. "They're beautiful!"

"Wonderful," adds Tamaki. "You two should be proud!"

"We are," Hikaru honestly preens.

The whole exchange carries the air of being an icebreaker. Kyoya realizes why three seconds later when Haruhi asks, "So, Kyoya, how have you been?"

"Very busy."

An awkward chuckle comes from Tamaki. "So you've said. Has anything changed? What about the situation with the Domens?"

"Still tenuous—"

Hikaru cuts in, "Wait, what happened with the Domens?"

Kaoru sighs, "Is it Akemi again?"

He's referring to the only daughter of the Domen family, who Kyoya has thankfully only met a handful of times. Not unlike a certain French girl who moved out to Japan on a whim just to see him, she'd decided some time ago that she and Kyoya are meant to be together. Whereas Renge's infatuation stemmed from projection of a fictional version of himself, the Domen heiress's seemed to stem more from offense. She is apparently quite used to suitors falling over their feet to impress her, so Kyoya not doing the same is a grave insult. They have a cycle now: arranged meeting between them, she flirts and winks and slinks his way, Kyoya does not reciprocate, she storms out in a rage. Repeat. Kyoya does not talk about her often. Which is probably why Kaoru got her name wrong.

"Amaya, and no, this doesn't have anything to do with her."

Haruhi explains, "They're threatening to pull out again, but they've done that before. It's just a lot of trouble."

"No doubt everyone is working in overdrive." Tamaki's look is crushingly sympathetic even pixelated through a computer. "I'm sorry, Kyoya. I'm sure it's crazy over there right now."

"It's work. This is just a part of it." Kyoya straightens up his already-straight posture. "I've told you before, we don't get breaks."

As usual, they are not so easily swayed. Haruhi chides, "Yeah, but only getting three hours of sleep a night? That's not healthy."

"I—"

" _Three hours?"_ Kaoru and Hikaru shout in unison. They don't do that _so_ much anymore, but they'll always have the same wavelengths, apparently.

"You know, I often got less when we were in the Host Club, considering all the times it was decided in the spur of the moment that we were going somewhere—"

Tamaki says, "Kyoya, I understand that the family business is important to you, but don't you think you should focus a little more on your wellbeing? Even the busiest of people take a break every now and then."

"I've told all of you that I'm fine. I need to get used to this kind of scheduling, or else I'll never be a worthwhile part of the company." The second he sees a pair of lips open to protest, Kyoya continues on, "I'm here because I was invited to take part in looking at the wedding attire. I'd like it if we could get back to that."

More silence. Somehow all four of them share looks. Kyoya is very, very close to snapping.

"Alright." Kaoru picks up a pen again. "Let's get back to it."

Haruhi and Tamaki don't seem so eager anymore. One of the qualities the two of them share is that neither are willing to drop a problem when they see it. It seems that the only thing holding them back from persisting that Kyoya is in a bad situation is the twins' presence and not being there in person.

Hikaru perks up. "Oh, Boss, do you want to see what we've got for your suit?"

Tamaki also perks up, bright as a star. "Yes!"

The image comes up.

It is a diaper. Just a silhouette with googly eyes and a tongue-y smile wearing a diaper.

The sound that absolutely _shreds_ out of Kyoya's laptop's speakers sounds very vaguely like _"THAT'S IT."_ Suddenly Tamaki's window is a blur of yellow hair and flailing limbs, and the next second, they're left looking at his desk chair spinning in place. A door slams.

Kaoru and Hikaru are, of course, cackling. Haruhi is staring off into space.

Kyoya really, truly is about to snap. He doesn't even have a headache, but each squeak of laughter that comes out of the twins' mouths is like a stab into his ears. He doesn't know what it is, but there's also a strange, muffled thumping sound somewhere.

Haruhi's voice is barely heard. "You guys better laugh while you can."

The twins just keep laughing, and it keeps stabbing and the thumping—

Wait.

The thumping is coming from the door.

Someone's coming—

The last thing Kyoya sees is Hikaru's Cheshire grin turn into terror, and the last thing he hears is _"How'd you get here so FAST—?!"_ Then he clicks off the entire browser.

Right in the nick of time, too. The spreadsheet is already pulled up on the screen, and the door opens not even a second later.

It's Yoshio. Kyoya instantly goes stiff all over, like his body is trying to auto-correct his posture on instinct. It is late, but Yoshio is still dressed in his suit and tie, nothing so much as unbuttoned. He doesn't seem angry, but his father's face is severe by default. Kyoya never quite knows what to expect from him.

"Cancel all your plans for tomorrow morning," he says right away. "We'll be going to the Domen estate."

His tone is final, but he doesn't seem urgent, so this isn't _too_ last-minute. Still, the obvious stress makes it clear it wasn't planned, either. Kyoya does not ask why, when, how, what, or who. He simply answers, "Yes, Father" and mentally wipes the slate for the next morning.

"Amaya will be attending," Yoshio continues. "I expect you to act civilly with her."

Kyoya…always _does._ "Yes, Father."

He is honestly surprised when his father clarifies, "You won't be expected to flatter her or give her any special accommodations. I simply expect you to be polite and kind to her."

It's an Amaya problem after all, then. "Yes, Father."

Yoshio hesitates for a moment, but then he turns for the door just as quickly as he'd walked through it to begin with. But then…he pauses again. He takes his hand off the door, turns back, and asks, "Has your mother contacted you recently?"

"No." He answers without even processing—without even realizing that this means Jin hasn't contacted her husband for the same stretch.

Yoshio nods. He leaves.

Kyoya's phone is already buzzing.

**From: Kaoru**

Did your laptop crash?

**From: Hikaru**

Did you log off?

**From: Tamaki**

Kyoya please come back! I promise the twins won't be any more trouble but your opinions are CRITICAL to the planning of this wedding!

**From: Haruhi**

I don't blame you. Let's try again later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of right now, my family and I are doing fine. We live outside of city limits, kinda-sorta in the country side, so we're not near any big cities that are being hit hard. Unfortunately, my father and I have jobs pretty closely-involved with the public. I'm working at a restaurant with a closed dining room now and I'm being very careful with keeping distance between everyone and keeping my hands clean. Besides our jobs, we're limiting our public outings to necessity like getting groceries. I'm feeling fine...besides allergies ;-_- Pretty bad timing.
> 
> That's my current circumstances as of right now. PLEEEAAAASE be safe, everyone! Try not to go out unless you absolutely must, wash your hands accordingly, and use sanitizer with 60-or-more percent alcohol. Remember that isolation isn't just about not getting sick, it's about not spreading the virus.


	9. A Question

Kosuke keeps her promise. She does not go on any more dates.

She just can't forget about the Blue Suit. She has twice had nightmares about him. In the first, he attacks her like a wild animal, and Kosuke's screams for help are met with sneers by the fancily-dressed people that pass by them. In the second, someone possesses Kosuke's body and _agrees_ to go home with him. She woke up from both unable to breathe.

It's probably an overreaction on her part…but she has to be careful, doesn't she? All of her fears and concerns before were probably overreactions, too, but overreactions that were validated in the end.

So this means that all she got out of so much stressing and sweating was one week of the loan shark's debt. She has changed _nothing._ Nothing whatsoever. Weeks pass, each one another chunk of their money gone down the drain. Naturally, there are other costs, too. Gas, electricity, water, food. So it is much, much worse.

Kosuke wants to say she has other stuff to worry about, but she doesn't. This isn't just for her, it's for Minami and Hitsuji, too. Kosuke can't waste a second lamenting her woes when she has her siblings to care for. Not only does she have to keep cooking their meals and keep them safe, she has to be happy and welcoming for them—she's all they have, and they're all she has.

Family-wise, anyway. It's pretty solidified now that the two Fujiokas and Tamaki aren't letting her go anytime soon. In the month or so that's passed since that "visit with her friends", Haruhi and Ranka have already visited again. Kosuke wouldn't be able to be there for Haruhi's birthday proper, so she gives it to her then: a pair of cooking mitts with bear paws and a comfy oversized T-shirt, perfect for pajamas. Just the fact that buying her best friend a gift made Kosuke nervous for her wallet says…a lot. She says nothing, however, especially when Haruhi wraps her in a hug and thanks her.

(Minami and Hitsuji draw her a picture of her riding a dragon. Haruhi is amazed.)

They keep up their calls and text messages, and for as location-distant as their friendship is, Haruhi (she has come to learn) is a very observable person. So much so that over _text,_ she can tell that something is wrong. Kosuke has re-read their conversations time and time again and cannot for the life of her figure out what she's saying that gives it away. If all Kosuke says is _Getting new clothes for Minami, she's outgrowing them,_ how does Haruhi ask, _You've been doing a lot lately, are you sure you're not tired?_

She gets her answer when she _really_ looks back and sees that any time Haruhi asks what she's doing, it's always a job or chore of some sort.

Kosuke just can't stop to rest. Not even when she has most definitely fallen sick.

Minami and Hitsuji have both gotten sick a few times, fevers and colds and the occasional bugs. Thankfully none have been so serious as to go to the doctor; they've been remedied with some good soup and medication. Kosuke has dodged a bullet by not falling ill in such a critical position. Headaches and stomachaches, of course, but not the kind of sick that confines you to bed.

Until the day after Haruhi's birthday. The second Kosuke wakes up that morning, she realizes she's in for hell.

She forces herself to get up and take medication for the pounding headache. There's an ache between her shoulders and down her back. Her fatigue has been multiplied by a dozen—blinking takes an effort. Even better, it's a weekend, and that means no school, and that means Hitsuji and Minami are supposed to get her full attention.

"Let's play dolls!" "Okay, come on."

"Kos'ke, puzzle! Let's do a puzzle!" "Coming, buddy."

"'M hungry, can I have a snack?" "Sure, hang on."

Kosuke gets up and sits down and tries very, very hard to ignore the dizziness that sweeps over her every time she moves. She takes her temperature and yes, it's a little high, but she doesn't have time to focus on it before she has to help the kids set up a movie to watch. Medicine keeps the headaches at bay, but not much else.

So her final solution is to whip up some soup, but her phone goes off as she's getting the onion and celery cooked. "Minami, can you bring me my phone?"

"Yeah." Little feet pad across the floorboards. "It's Haruhi. Can I answer?"

"Sure."

"Hey, Haruhi…Uh-huh…She's making soup…No, she's sick…"

Kosuke starts flailing, waving, even shaking her hands together to _beg_ her to stop, but Minami is too caught up in phone-call-land to even notice. "She's been taking medicine but she's kind of slow…No…Okay."

The phone is passed to her at last. She doesn't even get a hello.

" _Are you sick?"_

"I just have a little fever, that's all."

" _How much?"_

"Hundred. I'm making soup—"

" _Soup isn't medicine. Have you taken medicine?"_

"Yes!"

" _Is it_ working?"

"It's going to take a little while for it to kick in, Haruhi. I'm fine, I promise."

" _Is it just a fever?"_

"Uh…"

" _Kosuke."_

"I have a headache. I'm dizzy."

" _Does your throat hurt?"_

"Barely."

" _So yes."_

"Barely!"

" _Kosuke, you need to go see a doctor and get a prescription."_

"Oh, come on." Kosuke pops a cap off the broth bottle and pours, the phone wedged between her cheek and her shoulder. "It's not that bad."

" _It's going to get a lot worse if you don't do something about it."_

Kosuke can see Minami watching from the corner of her eye. "I don't need a doctor."

For maybe the first time in all their friendship, Haruhi's voice takes on a sharpness at her. _"Kosuke, you're my friend. You know that, so I'm telling you that you're being stupid. I know you think you have to take care of the kids but first you have to take care of yourself."_

Kosuke does not argue because that makes _too_ much sense. If she's confined to her bed, unable to move with a pounding headache and restless stomach, then who will take care of Hitsuji and Minami? She hadn't even thought about if she was contagious…

" _Will you go see a doctor?"_

"Yes. I will go see a doctor."

" _Alright."_ Haruhi's voice softens just so. _"Please just be careful. You'll break if you push yourself too hard."_

She's right, of course. So Kosuke goes to the doctor, gets a prescription—it's sinuses, of course—and though she has to deal with a throat that gets more sore and fever and headaches, she comes out alright.

But it costs money. _Everything_ costs money, it's so stupid.

She gets a text message from Tamaki later in the day.

_Haruhi told me you were sick. Do you need anything at all? Please don't hesitate to let me know._

Kosuke knows the offer is genuine. Tamaki offers to help her money-wise pretty much every time she sees him, but Kosuke refuses. She doesn't want to say it's pride, but it's definitely something. The first time she agrees to take unearned money, she feels like that's the first sign of hopelessness, that all will be lost.

It's already feeling hopeless.

Kosuke does not hate every part of her life. She has a wonderful best friend, and two more friends because of that. She has the two best little siblings anyone could ask for. She has a roof over her head and a bed to sleep in. She has a job and can cook good food. She's still capable of feeling happiness and laughing, she's not just a walking embodiment of grief and sadness.

The simple fact, however, is that there are a lot of factors her personal feelings aren't going to mask or make up for. She cannot go to college to get a job-earning education. Their money is declining and her job is not helping. She has to pay a debt to a loan shark who has threatened her and her family. Life itself is full of a lot of curveballs and each one is another punch to their bank account.

She can ask for advice, sure, but not _help._ Kosuke has spent eighteen years of her life completely dependent on her parents and she was never thankful for any of it. She was told time and again to prepare herself and actually be an adult and she never listened, so this is her punishment. This serves her right, however unfair it all is.

Kosuke…

She misses her parents.

She wants to say time has dulled the pain, but…not really, no.

She needs their guidance and wisdom and she just doesn't have it. At the same time, if they could come back without changing anything about their financial standing, _Kosuke would be happy._ She'd be so much happier than she'd ever felt before.

She and her mother had drifted a bit in their last few years together. Emiko had made it very clear that as much as she loved her daughter, she loathed her habits and laziness. No doubt she'd wanted to throttle Kosuke at least once. At minimum, Emiko was aware—and made it known that she was aware—that her daughter was rather pathetic. The embodiment of wasted potential. Whereas her two younger siblings had been showered in praise and affection, Kosuke got occasional hugs and brief smiles.

The revelation of what Marti had done had changed her perception of him a bit. She'd never even thought that their financial situation could be so dire, so the idea that her father would not have told them about it was incomprehensible. Had he even told Emiko, she wonders? Marti had either been desperate or naïve or foolish or _something—_ he was not stupid, but…Come _on!_ What made him think that what he did was okay? Did it ever cross his mind what he would be doing to his family if something happened to him?

None of this means that Kosuke doesn't still love them and miss them.

She misses Emiko's biting sarcasm, her stone-hard stubbornness, the fact that she always seemed to know what to do at every single moment. She misses Marti's ease of everything, his almost permanent smile, his unfaltering tenderness.

Even moreso, she misses going with Marti on trips to the grocery store, or silently reading a book on the opposite end of the couch with her mother. Birthdays and Christmases. Normalcy. It's the memories that hurt the most, really. Especially the ones from long, long ago, of her mother carrying her to bed when she fell asleep, of Marti helping her ride a bike for the first time.

Minami and Hitsuji no doubt feel the same pain. They've both cried on seemingly random days because of course they do. The reminder of what they've lost sometimes just hits out of nowhere. Kosuke lets them sob about how much they miss Mommy or Daddy and refuses to cry herself. She's positive that will only scare them and make them think that all is lost.

If she could have her old life back, Kosuke would take it in a heartbeat, no matter what she'd have to give up in turn. To just have Emiko and Marti magically walk in like they've been gone on a trip this whole time and slide right back to where they were would _literally_ be a dream come true. Kosuke has had many dreams of her parents and the worst are always the ones where they are still alive. In the moment, those dreams are wonderful. She feels the warmth of them as she hugs them close. They are real and alive. Then she wakes up and remembers.

This is how life works now. Kosuke can't go back in time. Her only choice is to keep going and be strong, so she has to do that, even if she doesn't have a single idea what she's going to do.

* * *

The next time that a man in a suit comes to her doorstep, both the children are at school and Kosuke is coming home from grocery shopping. It is early March, the end of the school year just around the corner. Kosuke has prepared herself for the change in schedule with both the kids being home all day.

He is wearing a dark gray suit, and his hair is pale blonde—that's all she notices at first, standing so far away. For a moment, she's terrified, because she thinks it _has_ to be from the loan sharks…but she's been paying the money. Do they want more? How is she going to give them _more?_

She keeps walking despite the panic, and when he hears her footsteps, he turns. Kosuke falters in her steps, because— _something_ on him is throwing her off. Unlike the loan shark, nothing on him outwardly screams trouble. He is a perfectly normal-looking man, handsome even, maybe in his early forties. His blonde hair is trimmed neatly, and he has prominent crow's feet at his bright blue eyes. He is not familiar at all, and yet Kosuke feels like he should be, somehow.

He also pauses when he sees her, making an expression she can't read. He straightens his shoulders but doesn't smile, just nodding at her and asking, "Are you Kosuke Nakahara?"

"Yes." Kosuke stops halfway between him and the gate she still hasn't replaced. It seems a safe distance. "Can I help you?"

"No—in fact, I am here to help _you._ "

Kosuke's brows knit together. "Are you from the bank?"

"No."

"Social services?"

"No. I'm not from any sort of organization." He reads her unease at once. "I'm going to stay here, if that makes you any more comfortable. I won't move until you tell me."

Kosuke does not answer. She is too busy asking herself what the freaking odds are that she is having to deal with _yet another_ creep trying with a motive.

"Kosuke, I am aware that you and your siblings are in a very precarious position right now."

Wary but also maybe just a _little_ hopeful: "Are you with the police?"

"No—I told you, no organization."

"A…private investigator, then?"

This time his eyes narrow at her with impatience. She decides that it has to be his eyes that is unsettling her so much. For some reason. "Is there something less than legal going on?"

Guess not. "No. I'm just trying to figure out _how you know who I am._ "

"I assure you, I'm not here to hurt you or cause you any more trouble than you're already dealing with. I'm here to help you. I know who you are because I knew your mother."

Well, Kosuke's heard that one before, and it ended with a broken gate and a shattered store window. She's already taking a step back toward the street. "Tell me something about her, then. Prove it."

He doesn't seem surprised or bothered. "Her name was Emiko. She liked to read horror novels and she had a scar on her elbow from an accident when she was a child."

Well then.

Kosuke doesn't know whether she's more at ease or unease. Neutrality is the best she can manage. "Alright. What, exactly, do you want?"

The man clasps his hands in front of him. "I am here to make you an offer. It is a very large one, not to be taken lightly, but it will benefit you and your siblings a hundred times over."

"A business deal?"

"Almost."

"I'm going to need you to start being a little less mysterious."

"I'd rather explain this somewhere more private, if we could?"

Kosuke is nearly convinced, if only to talk inside, but she has one more question. " _How_ did you know my mother?"

The man sighs, very impatient now, as if he expected it to take so long but didn't like it all the same. A look at his watch, and he levels his gaze on Kosuke, speaking firmly:

"Your mother and I used to be married. I'm your father."

Then Kosuke realizes what the problem was: she'd seen his eyes every time she looked in the mirror.

* * *

The subject of Kosuke's father had always been one carefully avoided with her mother. Same as her grandparents.

For all of her childhood, it was just the two of them, hopping from apartment to apartment, school to school. A mother-daughter duo trying to find a home. Kosuke knew that she was supposed to have a father, because whenever she saw pictures of families, there was always a mommy, a daddy, and the children. So when she was young and asked, "Where's my daddy?" Emiko would answer, "He's not around." If she asked why, Emiko would just hush her.

As she grew older, Kosuke started getting theories, particularly from her classmates—this boy's parents were divorced, this girl's mother had died. Her curiosity had become frustration. She'd given up on that, though, because her mother had grown angry both times she'd asked for answers. Not just snapping, but snapping so hard Kosuke was driven to tears. "I said we're _not talking about it!"_ Then Emiko had pulled her close and apologized, but didn't answer.

So at some point Kosuke had unhappily accepted that whatever had happened to her father, he wasn't going to be coming back, and it wasn't happy. The last, last, _last_ time she had asked was maybe four years ago. Emiko had tried to dismiss it, the same we're-not-talking-about-it, and Kosuke had finally put her foot down. "I deserve to know what happened! He's _my_ dad!"

For a second, Emiko had flushed with anger, and Kosuke was prepared for quite a fight with plenty of yelling. She could count the number of times she'd raised her voice at her mother on her fingertips, and they all ended in disaster.

Instead, Emiko's face had crumpled, and Kosuke was rendered dumbstruck—she'd never seen her mother look so _broken_ so fast _._ She had asked her, very simply: "Please don't ask me again."

No, Kosuke didn't take it with loving understanding. She still deserved to know and her mother's sadness didn't invalidate that. She just couldn't, though. Any time she was tempted to after, she just remembered how defeated her mother had looked, and kept it in with the confusion and frustration.

Kosuke's relationship with her mother—as horrible or disrespectful as it might be to say—was not perfect. Even so, she never had the strength to intentionally cause her mother such grief.

Besides, she already had a dad, the best a girl could ask for. Marti came into her life like a knight in shining armor. It was a fairy tale, except that instead of princes marrying princesses, the king had found the little girl that wanted a father more than anything. She remembers when she had just learned that he and Emiko were going to get married, she'd made him a crayon storybook of it. She was expecting some hugs and compliments on her work, not for Marti to _weep_ and hold her for three hours.

When Emiko had died—and Marti too, perhaps. Had Emiko ever told _him?_ —Kosuke had decided that the truth had died with her. No aunts or uncles, no grandparents, no one.

And now Kosuke is sitting across from her father: Shigeo.

Just when she thought her life couldn't get any more bizarre.

She doesn't know what to do, or what to say. There is no guideline for this situation. She'd let him in, sat them at a table, and now they just sit tensely together at the table.

This man—she can't say _her dad,_ because he is just _a man_ —was once married to her mother. He is half of Kosuke's parentage. And yet she has never met him, has never learned his name before, has never had a semblance of what he so much as looked like. Now he is here now, not hugging her close, not offering explanations, but acting more like a businessman in a bothersome meeting.

Kosuke isn't mad, but she isn't happy, and she isn't scared, but she isn't confident. She is somehow feeling so many things that they have cancelled each other out. She is numb.

Shigeo sips at the tea she's poured him. She can't pick up everything, but Kosuke thinks she can see their similarities if she tries. Bright blue eyes apart, she thinks she has his nose, the shape of his ears. Maybe.

"If you have questions, I suppose now would be as good as time as any to ask them."

Kosuke lags like an old computer. She has to work her brain full-throttle just to function properly. Ideas pachinko-ball in her brain, but she settles on the most obvious: "Why haven't you been around?"

Shigeo's lips purse, displeased but not surprised. "I don't intend on going into extensive details of what happened. Simply put, we were married, we divorced, and she left before you were born. She made it very clear I was not to pursue you or her."

So much for that, then. If she ever figures out what happened, it's going to be through her own investigation, apparently. "How long have you known she's been…?"

She does not miss the sadness that glints in his eyes. So perhaps he does care, even a little. "I've been keeping up to date with Emiko since she left—only with what has been publicly available. I know this restaurant was very successful, I know she remarried and had two more children—" Is that a hint of bitterness she detects? "—and I know she and her husband were killed in a car accident."

"So why are you here _now_?"

He does not answer immediately. There's no telling what his answer will be, but Kosuke is not too sure it'll be anything caring. Nothing he's said or done thus far has implied a fatherly desire to make amends with his long-lost daughter, however tragic the circumstances.

It takes a good minute for him to respond. He runs a hand down his face. He's choosing his words carefully.

"My full name is Shigeo Amida. Does that sound familiar to you?" Kosuke shakes her head. "Has Emiko told you much at all about me?" Kosuke shakes her head again. "Amida Health might not be a household name, but it is a very successful medical technology company. My grandfather started it, but since I took over, I have increased our profits tenfold."

Kosuke just nods along because she doesn't know what else to do. She figures answers are coming.

"I have done some investigating into your situation since…You can tell. I didn't want to cause you any concern so soon after, so it was a matter of this person coming here to ask this person to ask this person about you. So on, so forth. As I've said, I know that the situation that you—and your siblings—are in. I believe that I can help."

Now this is just…too big a pill to choke down.

Just—how on earth is Kosuke supposed to wrap her head around all this?

Her father whom she has never met before, whom she questioned was even _alive,_ is now sitting in front of her for the first time in her life and is offering to help her and her siblings, the children of his ex-wife and her husband.

If Kosuke has ever before wished she could use a pause button in real life, she wants it now more than ever.

She flounders, and it's pathetic, but… _what the hell._ "I…Just—can we please slow down? I can't…"

Shigeo—the name _Kosuke Amida_ pops into her head like a jumpscare in a horror movie—nods, but looks at his watch all the same. Nothing about him is remotely warm. The fact that her mother was somehow wooed into marrying him is a mystery, but perhaps divorcing him isn't.

Alright, no. Maybe he isn't a horrible person. After all, he's here now, offering his help. Except…Emiko didn't want him anywhere near them…

Kosuke gathers her words together. "My mother…She didn't even tell me your _name._ She never talked about you, or what happened to you both. You won't tell me either, and you have to understand why the fact that you're now offering so much help on the first day of ever meeting me is weird at best."

"Allow me to clarify something. I am not here to instantly support you or your siblings for the rest of your lives. This is blunt to say, but it must be said: I don't know you, you don't know me. There is no love or trust between us."

She figures she really can't allow her feelings to be hurt, because he is completely right. So she just gestures for him to continue.

"I _will,_ however, support you and your siblings for the rest of your lives—or rather, I will give you the opportunity to do that yourself—if an agreement can be made."

"You said you weren't looking for me to help you."

"Consider this a two-way street."

It is too good to be true; Kosuke isn't stupid or naïve. There is something very fishy going on here and she doesn't have to have experience as a loan shark's prey to know that.

_But…_

Support for the rest of their lives is good all the same. Greater than good. Out-of-a-dream fantastic, so much so that instead of being swept up in the fantasy, she plants her feed down in reality.

If this is a trap, she will run for the hills, because they can't survive any more damage. If this is real, though, Kosuke will be passing by on a golden opportunity. She has to at least listen, right?

"What is the agreement?"

Shigeo does not smile or even perk up, but he seems a bit pleased somehow. "Next Saturday there will be an event where your attendance will be required. I will provide transportation, and if you need it, proper attire."

She blinks. "To support myself and my siblings for the rest of our lives, I have to…attend a party?"

"No." The look he gives her is an unsaid insult to her intelligence. "This 'party' will _lead to_ the agreement, depending on the outcome."

"What is the outcome?"

"That I cannot tell you."

"What am I going to the party for?"

"That I cannot tell you."

"I am…not comforted by the lack of details."

"I thought you might be. Here is an incentive, if you wish."

He reaches into the breast pocket of his blazer and pulls out a folded envelope. The last time Kosuke took a piece of paper from a suited man, her workplace had its window shattered, so she lets him set it on the table.

"I do need to emphasize that if the outcome needed is not met, the agreement won't happen. I am giving you the opportunity, however."

Kosuke shakes her head. "You're a stranger to me."

"As you are to me."

"My mother didn't want you to come near me."

"That was her choice. This is yours."

Shigeo stands from his chair. Standing there in his prim and proper suit and his unfamiliar face as still as ever, Kosuke just cannot put it into fact that this is her father. The sheer idea of this man telling her bedtime stories, taking her to school, even _touching_ her, is insane at best.

"If you agree, I need to know by next Wednesday at the latest. Sooner, preferably, so we can get you a dress in time. My contact information is in here." He hesitates, considering. "I'm going to ask that you don't take something away from this that wasn't said. I am not asking for your trust, and I'm certainly not hoping to 'build anew', if you will. I am making an offer, you can accept it. That's it."

There could never before have been a man so mysterious. His past, his motives, his plans, they're all unknown, and yet Kosuke is connected to him by blood and is being made a dreamlike offer. She can't say yes or no, she can't thank him or insult him. He is not a person, he is a….question.

"I understand."

Shigeo nods. He leaves. Kosuke's first meeting with her father didn't even last thirty minutes.

In the silence, she spends a minute just to bask in the knowledge of what has happened and is happening. If life decides to throw any more curveballs at her, there's no way Kosuke isn't going to fall down flat.

She opens the envelope, more curious than anything. Inside is a slip of paper with a phone number and e-mail address. There's also a hundred and eight thousand yen.

* * *

" _You're positive about this?"_

"No."

" _Then why are you doing this?"_

"Because if this turns out to be true, and I give up the chance, I am going to hurl myself off a cliff."

On the other side of the phone, Haruhi lets out a breath, but it isn't really a sigh. This isn't the first time they have talked since Shigeo has come. Kosuke called just later that night. There's just so much to talk about. Haruhi took everything with understanding, but she shared Kosuke's sentiment that this is a lot to take in all at once.

Kosuke took quite a while to just sit on the idea. It isn't that complicated, really, she just had so much else to wade through before she got there. She'd gotten a hundred and eight thousand yen from doing absolutely nothing, so she is fairly certain now that this enigmatic "agreement" had at least a _grain_ of truth to it.

She decided that she would go to the party after realizing that she had nothing to lose. If Shigeo didn't get the results he wanted, that was it—the plan (whatever it is) wouldn't happen, and for all she knew, he was going to go back to wherever he came from. If all went well, however, it was financial stability for the rest of her, Minami, and Hitsuji's lives. A literal dream come true. Kosuke would lose nothing either way.

She had done some research on Shigeo, too. Amida Health is indeed a real company, and it is indeed incredibly successful. Their technology could apparently be found globally in hospitals, from simple scales to incubators to CAT-scanners and even prosthetics. Any mention of him and her mother's marriage, however, was not to be found—understandable, as Kosuke doubted even the biggest gossips would find interest in the marital woes of the owner of a company that, though wealthy, was not a household name. She'd told Haruhi this, but since she'd immediately confused it with "Arima" and forgot what the business was, she guessed the older woman didn't care too much about the specifics.

After calling to say she'd be coming (and telling him her size), Shigeo said her dress would arrive soon—and that her 'stylist' would be coming to her. Kosuke had intended to ask if she could watch over the children once again, but she didn't even get three words out before Haruhi had agreed. Ranka, too, but from what Haruhi relayed to him, he was too infuriated with the idea of a father reappearing in his child's life just for business matters to speak on the phone.

For now, the children are unaware of what is happening, and think that they are with Haruhi so Kosuke can simply have a "night off." Kosuke will have to tell them, of course, if this goes anywhere. With no assurance, though, Kosuke has decided that she will spare them the explanation if she finds it overly complicated.

It is Saturday now. The Fujiokas and the children are at the same pension they stay at every visit. Any minute now, someone will be coming to the door to pretty her up and sweep her out the door to a party she still has yet to know details about.

" _You'll call me if something goes sideways, right?"_

"Of course. I'll fight my way out of there if I have to."

Haruhi sighs. _"It just sounds really…suspicious."_

"You don't have to convince me."

" _I don't get how you aren't mad about anything. He's been gone for so long and now he's shown up just to strike a deal?"_

"I'm not _happy,_ believe me. I don't know why him and Mom divorced, or why he's here, or anything about him, and I'm not going to worry about any of that until I have to. It doesn't affect anything. There's already so much to take care of, so…No need."

" _Sure, I guess. You're just_ very _strong to take this all in so easily."_

"That's one way of putting it. I guess."

" _But you do want to know what happened, right?"_

This is the worst thing about this: Kosuke is trusting Shigeo for this to just be a party with no surprises, nothing harmful, everything normal. That's as far as her trust can go, however, because it really sunk in that this is a man her mother didn't want anywhere near her. He could very well be dangerous, and even if he isn't going to lay any hands on her, how would Emiko feel to know that Kosuke was talking to him now, had let him into their home? If she's watching her, is she screaming for her to stop, run away, don't ever talk to him again?

Her energy is almost drained at this point, having to make so many decisions between equally bad choices. Comply with a loan shark, or have her siblings' safety threatened. Go on a compensated date, or just take another chunk from the bank. Do business with the man her mother hated, or pass up a chance to keep her family in stable wealth.

All she can do is cross her fingers and hope this party will result in just that and nothing else.

"Yes, but I've already spent a long time convinced I'd never find out, so I can stomach it."

" _You know you can only stomach so much."_

"So you remind me." The glint of headlights outside the windows stops Kosuke short. "Hey, I think the people are here. Tell the kids I'm okay and I'll see them later!"

" _Be careful,"_ Haruhi reminds her one last time before she hangs up.

It is not 'people', however, but one woman who looks to be the embodiment of haute couture. Face of severe lines, lips a rich purple, blazer with leg-of-mutton sleeves a foot wide. She's wearing pumps with no heels and Kosuke is appropriately terrified. The woman, _whoever she is,_ doesn't spare her so much as a greeting as she struts in with a sleek black case in one hand and a plastic-sheathed dress slung across the other arm.

"Change into the dress first." Her Japanese is fluent, but Kosuke cannot place the accent. She obediently takes the dress, but she makes it only three steps before she barks, _"Quickly!"_ So she whimpers and scampers away.

In the bathroom, she takes the plastic off and…oh no. Kosuke is not going to be able to make it through the evening in this. She felt scared to touch anything in the Blue Tower for fear of it costing more than her life. Now she's going to be going to a party dressed in a lifetime of money.

It is _gorgeous,_ and that is the problem. Mint green in color, floor-length, a straight neckline and elbow-length sleeves. The top is beaded with magical handiwork, the skirt made of whatever the material is that flutters with every step. Kosuke has never worn anything so lovely, or _expensive,_ in all her nineteen years.

She slips it on, though, and it fits like a dream and a nightmare all at once. If she gets a drop of anything on this dress, she will die. That is final.

The stylist is not pleased when she emerges, and explains—or shouts, really—that there are apparently rules when it comes to wearing dresses like these. You could lift the skirt just a bit to walk, but only with one hand unless you were going downwards, and never higher than the ankle. No slouching whatsoever. Finally (and most surprising), you are not supposed to wear a bra.

She gets shoes, white heels that are simple enough not to freak her out, though she knows they also cost a fortune. She gets little pearl earrings, but specifically no necklace, because the neckline of the dress apparently highlights the slope of her neck enough…or something.

The last time to ever give Kosuke a makeover was Okina, and Kosuke distinctly remembers her being…not-painful.

"Your handiwork is pathetic." The stylist is talking about her eyebrows, because while Kosuke does keep them plucked and trimmed, she apparently does not do it _right._ "You have caterpillars on your forehead."

She is blushed and eyeshadowed and mascaraed at lightning speed. Kosuke is not against makeup at all, but she keeps it to mascara, blush, and lip gloss at most. She's never before worn makeup that didn't feel cakey or thick, or lipstick that didn't smudge off on every cup lip. The stylist is as professional as they come, however, because other than the flutter of her eyelashes against her cheeks, Kosuke feels just the same.

(The stylist wants to try eyeliner, but when Kosuke's eyes water, she gets berated for her lack of a spine. No eyeliner.)

Her hair is curled so quickly Kosuke is almost positive she'll get burned, but she escapes unharmed. She wants a mirror, if only out of curiosity, but is denied. There is no time. Kosuke cannot deny that in the dress and the jewelry and everything, she feelslike a polished penny. It's probably stupid, but she can't deny it. At the same time, she'd feel a lot better if she knew that the hell she's getting polished _for._

"Do you touch your eyes often?" Kosuke shrugs. "If you feel tempted to do so, imagine your fingers will be chopped off."

That is the stylist's definition of a goodbye. If Kosuke is Cinderella getting dressed up for the ball, that is the _craziest_ version of a fairy godmother she could come up with.

Three seconds after the stylist ducks into her car (as expensive as everything else), a real, honest _limousine_ pulls up on the road. A _limousine._ Kosuke knew that they were real things, of course, but it never crossed her mind that she would ever ride in one. The road in front of her house isn't very big, and even though Kosuke's neighbors are not right next door to her, she wonders if she's going to be town gossip after this.

The limousine door opens apparently all on its own. Kosuke gets the message: _time to go, move your feet._ She locks up the building behind her and tip-toes _oh soooo carefully_ to the vehicle, determined not to let the skirt so much as _breathe_ against the ground.

The inside is as pristine and sleek as she expected, and Shigeo himself is no different. His suit is gray, but his tie is a bright sapphire blue. His cufflinks alone probably cost Kosuke three weeks of work. For some reason, Kosuke feels more unnerved now than she did their first meeting. She'd probably been too naïve not to be more wary.

"We need to discuss some things before we arrive," Shigeo says without letting her say a word. "I'm going to trust you to behave in a respectable way. Be polite. Mind your volume. Don't pull away from anyone, but try not to seek anyone out, either. If someone asks you about something you don't know about, change the subject or do your best. Just don't look stupid."

Kosuke swallows. "What kind of things will they ask about?"

"People that you don't know and business developments you've never heard of."

When Kosuke was younger, and had to go to a new school, her teachers would sometimes give her tests to assess her intelligence level—was she below, on par, or exceeding? Some questions were ones she had no inkling about, formulas and equations she'd never seen, which was the point. She wasn't expected to know the answers. She'd still felt a bit dumb for not knowing them, however, and she can only guess that this is the exact feeling that she's about to get for the next…however many hours this is going to take.

The drive will be a long one, maybe an hour depending on the traffic. Kosuke sits there in the posh limousine in her posh dress sitting next to her posh father she'd met a little over a week ago. She has to choke down the questions to her sanity— _What are you doing? Get out now! You can't trust him!—_ because she's already this far.

Still, she's decided that she needs to be more careful, ask more questions. Maybe if she'd been firmer, she wouldn't be paying off a debt, or been grabbed by the Blue Suit.

She breaks the silence like physical glass, but keeps her eyes ahead. She only spares him a glance from the corner of her eye. "I need to understand why you're doing this."

He checks his shining gold watch. "I thought I've already told you."

"No, not really. You said you aren't going to tell me what happened between you and Mom."

"Indeed, I did."

 _I'll find out eventually._ "You've also said you're not here to make a relationship that never happened." He says nothing, so she continues, "So I need some details about why you've come to me now, why I am coming to this party, and the 'agreement' that should be coming out of this."

The blink that's the only movement on his face is very annoyed. "I'd hoped that that envelope would keep you from panicking."

She doesn't miss the biting insult to that. She keeps her voice even. "That envelope convinced me that that this party, and your offer, are real. It didn't answer any other questions."

The silence is not of a man who has been convinced. It is the silence of a man who is very frustrated and maybe regretting doing this to begin with. Kosuke doesn't give him any sympathy.

"I am here—" He says it so slowly. _I am heeeeere,_ like she's too slow for him to talk any faster. "—because for the first time in almost twenty years, the circumstances of mine and Emiko's divorce is affecting aspects of my company. I've tried to keep it a private matter, but it was easier said than done. As far as the people attending this event know, your very existence is something I have only been made aware of after Emiko's passing. I have reached out to you to offer some mentorship and possible heirdom."

Kosuke doesn't even get to let that sink in, because Shigeo continues, "Which may or may not be true, depending on how this night ends." He pauses. "I don't know every detail of your life, but I'm going to guess that what you'll be seeing tonight is a world with norms and rules you've never had to meet. In this world, your business, no matter how big or how small, is vulnerable to your relations. Your relations are vulnerable to every aspect of your life, from your personality to your past and _especially_ your family."

She swallows down each word carefully. She can't let herself get overwhelmed again, even if more questions are popping up left and right. "If that's the case, why bring me into this at all? You could have gone on as if I didn't exist."

"I can't tell you any details about that. Just know it has to do with the desired outcome."

Shigeo finally looks over at her, clearly challenging her to ask anything else.

"If we don't reach the 'desired outcome'—whatever it is—then what you said, about supporting myself and my siblings for the rest of our lives, is void." It's not a question, so Shigeo doesn't deny it. "If that happens, where do you go from there? The whole thing about mentorship and heirdom is going to fall apart if I just disappear."

Turns out, her father is prideful to the point of hypocrisy. After dripping his explanation in condescension, making it clear in his tone he wanted her to just obey his words and ask no questions, he visibly darkens after she points this out. Kosuke will admit that she just meant to explain her question, but seeing his eyes narrow at her just so, she doesn't back down.

"The story will then be that you declined everything and returned to your life as it was."

However biting he sounds, Kosuke has to assume he hasn't posed any extreme lies as of yet. He'd said the mentorship and heirdom were maybe's, and by what he'd told her their first meeting, he might have only learned about her existence through his own investigations. She'd choose her mother over this stranger any _second,_ but that was quite a detail to hide. If this doesn't work out, then the story of her declining his offers is sensible at least.

She needs this to work out, though. Unless she is looking down the barrel of a gun, Kosuke has decided that she cannot in good conscience turn down this opportunity. She'll never have to worry about loan sharks, compensated dates, insurance, bills, or taxes ever again…or at least, she'll worry about them a lot _less._

At the same time, she knows she needs to be realistic. If she puts all her hope into this, she'll be left stupid and railing if it doesn't come to fruition. Hopeful but realistic, that's the way to go.

Shigeo adds one last detail. "If I need to say this, you're not to mention anything about your siblings or their father."

For the first time, his voice takes on a threat. Kosuke cannot read minds, but she can read words and body language. This isn't just about overcomplicating a story already wrapped in lies: he might not say it point-blank, but Shigeo does not like the idea of her siblings. He does not like the idea of their father. He very much does not like the idea that the wife that fled from him remarried to another man and had children with him on top of the one Shigeo had fathered.

Perhaps some of his bitterness is excused. Perhaps not. Fact of the matter is, Kosuke does not trust him any more than she has at the start of all this. He might be bound to her by blood, but he's a stranger, not family. He is not here to care for her, he's here for his own benefit. She can deal with that; she just has to be careful.

So she answers, agreeing but not submissive, "I won't."

The rest of the ride is silent.


	10. The Business World

Shigeo had not at all been lying when he’d described it as a different world. He’d just undersold it to an unlawful degree. 

Kosuke had thought that being at the Blue Tower had been an unearthly experience, and it _was._ The glass walls and glittering fountains were too luxurious to be real, no one acted like real people, she’d never even _seen_ a slot machine before. She still remembered the isolation, the guilt, and (worst of all) the Blue Suit, but the exact details are hazy after that. She can’t say what color the walls had been, or who won which games.

She thinks that tonight will be the same. She’d thought that they were walking into some kind of event hall, or a hotel, but after seeing framed photographs on the walls and catching glimpses of personalized bedrooms, Kosuke realizes she is in someone’s _home._ Whereas Kosuke is like most people, living in a home serviceable to her family, this family has a real, literal, not-making-this-up _parking lot._ The valet—once again, something she’d known to be real but unseen—skips over their limousine because the driver already has it covered.

No one is dressed to the nines, they are dressed to the nine thousands. Men’s suits are tailored to every line of their body, not a single stitch out of place, crisp and clean and making them look like origami figures. Women’s dresses seem almost a part of them, so perfectly beaded and laced so that each of them is their own vision of beauty. Kosuke feels incognito. In appearance, she fits right in, but a mask is a mask.

This party, as Shigeo had explained just a few minutes before they entered, is the celebration of an engagement. For a couple in an arranged marriage. Apparently their parents had wanted them together since birth, but had ultimately left the final word to them. By his tone, Shigeo thought it overdramatic. Kosuke thought it an open door for years of manipulation. “Mommy and Daddy will let you marry whoever you want, sweetie! But we _reeeaaally, reeaaally_ want it to be this person.”

The second they walk through the doors, they fall into their roles. Shigeo is the mother having her groceries bought and bagged. Kosuke is the little kid looking at the gumball machines until it’s done.

It isn’t a Cinderella moment, stepping under the crystal chandelier with her arm hooked around Shigeo’s. The room does not go silent as everyone turns to look at the pauper-turned-princess. No, everyone keeps on about their business, but Kosuke can still feel eyes on her. Maybe it is her imagination, but she thinks maybe a few hands rise up to whisper behind palms.

Shigeo leads her into a ballroom, or some other room just as grandiose. Most of the guests seem to be here, cycling around the newly (read: officially) engaged couple: young, warm, and joined at the arm. They seem genuinely happy, at least.

Kosuke is led right to the throng—she realizes they are now in line to give their congratulations. The last bit of wonder at the crystal chandeliers and champagne towers has to be choked down. This is the first part of her test. She keeps her posture, and smiles just enough to not look like she has no idea what she’s doing.

Shigeo puts on a smile so convincing Kosuke is actually just a little bit scared. “It’s wonderful to hear the news. Maybe I’ll start calling you two Mr. and Mrs. Nishimiya already.”

The two give polite laughs, and the girl (she can’t be much older than Kosuke) says, “It’s so nice to see you here, Mr. Amida. We were worried you may not show tonight.”

“As was I. Luckily I managed to make it over.” Shigeo does a little half-nod, half-bow that the engaged couple return. “I wish you two nothing but happiness.”

“Thank you, Mr. Amida,” they say almost at the same time.

And that’s…it. Apparently.

Shigeo leads her away once more before Kosuke can say so much as a syllable. He has someone he’s looking for, judging by his scanning gaze, but he’s very good at pretending that he isn’t looking at all. Kosuke just keeps walking with him. She hasn’t said a word and she’s wondering if she’ll simply be here for show tonight.

“Shigeo!”

From seemingly nowhere, a woman comes gliding up to them with a warm but professional smile. Her brown hair is in an immaculate bun, her violet dress hasn’t a crease in sight, but probably most telling is that she’s wearing white gloves that go all the way up to her elbows: another cartoonish symbol of the rich.

The woman smiles perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth at both of them. “I don’t think I can keep my curiosity down much longer. This wouldn’t happen to be your daughter, would it?”

“Yes, it is.” Then Shigeo puts his hand between Kosuke’s shoulders in a false display of fatherly pride. “Madame Karuma, this is Kosuke.”

Madame Karuma gives her the tiniest of bows, and Kosuke does what she thinks she’s supposed to do in this situation and bows much, much deeper until she can’t see her face anymore. Her curled hair curtains her eyes for just a second, hopefully masking her deer-in-headlights look. When she stands upright again, Madame Karuma looks pleased and Shigeo seems satisfied at minimum.

Then Madame Karuma’s face softens and she folds her gloved hands over her heart. “I’m so very sorry to hear about your mother, dear. Such a tragedy.”

It’s not that it’s ingenuine, but it is coming from an absolute stranger. She’s giving her condolences because she knows Shigeo and she’s his daughter—it’s doubtful she would have ever brought it up otherwise. Common sense, of course, but Kosuke’s appreciative smile is forced. “Thank you.”

Madame Karuma’s face just goes right back to normal, quirking up a sly smile. “I’m guessing it was her who gave your daughter such a pretty face.”

“Of course,” Shigeo answers, narrowing his eyes but still smiling. “Thank you for noticing.”

Madame Karuma tilts her head to the right. “If you’re looking for Yoshio, he’s outside. I believe he’s looking for you, too.”

“Thank you.” Madame Karuma nods once and turns away with her skirts trailing elegantly behind her. As soon as she's gone, Shigeo's smile drops back into his default, stone-still expression. He turns to Kosuke and walks in front of her just so. He faces her head-on and slips his arm out of hers, and even though they aren't so much as touching anymore, Kosuke feels that he's blocking her in to share a secret.

"I'm going to go take care of something," he tells her. There is no room for argument. "Don't be rude, but don't seek out anyone. Just _seem_ approachable. This shouldn't take long."

Then he just leaves, and Kosuke is alone.

She tries her hardest not to look like a shy kid on her first day of school. It _is_ hard, though. It's one thing to be alone in a room of strangers. Throw in the fact that she has to be as flawless as possible, and Kosuke is very close to sweating, which she cannot afford. (Literally. She's wearing money.)

There has to be something she can do alone. There's food somewhere, right? There has to be.

 _I'll get a drink_ , she thinks to herself. _I'll get a drink and stoically observe the rest of the party like a mysterious madame bored by everything, elegant and unapproachable but too respectable to dislike. Maybe._

She does get a drink—non-alcoholic, a type of fruity-smelling tea served in dainty glass teacups—but no sooner does she lift one from a silver tray does a voice ask, "Are you Mr. Amida's daughter?"

Kosuke answers before she can even see who's asking. It's two women (the younger haven spoken), probably sisters just by the look of them. They could be supermodels: tall, with long necks and striking eyes. They look at her not so much with admiration, but interest.

"I told you," the younger scoffs to the older. "She looks just like him!"

"Does not. Her eyes, maybe. Nothing else." The older looks her up and down. "How old are you?"

Kosuke allows herself to only blink once. "Nineteen."

The younger tilts her head to the side. "Are you attending Ouran University?"

Warning!

Warning!

You will appear stupid and lazy if you are not attending a prestige college!

But also don't lie because you're awful at lying on the spot!

"I...am taking a year off, actually. I have some...personal matters I need to get in order before I go to college."

The older flicks the younger on the arm hard enough to Kosuke to wince her sympathy. "You know what happened to her, idiot. Don't be rude."

"So-ree." She says it to the older woman, though. Not Kosuke, who she simply turns back to as if the death of her parents wasn't just the topic of their talk. "You _will_ be attending Ouran, though? Practically every college-age blueblood does."

It's odd, the way she says "blueblood": she's not sarcastic in the slightest. They are bluebloods, pure and simple. And...damn, Kosuke guesses she's blueblooded, too. Not just now, always has been.

"It's certainly an option." That sounds fine to her. Fine enough. She's lying, probably, but it's fine. Except maybe it isn't, because the two women look mildly unimpressed for a moment before their elegant faces return to form.

The older picks up a glass teacup of her own. "Moncelli is the best, don't you think?"

"Yes," Kosuke agrees. She has no idea what Moncelli is. “Absolutely…sublime.”

"Oh, please." The younger rolls her eyes. Kosuke finally concludes that they, at least, aren't being expected to upkeep flawless elegance. "Everyone knows Almerdam is much better."

"You can't tell Moncelli from Almerdam from battery acid.”

“You confused a Riorgio for a Cartello yesterday, don’t act so high-and-mighty.”

“I have to remind you the difference between Giavanni and Givonnio every day!”

“Give me a break, they sound so similar!” The younger turns to Kosuke, pulling her right back into the conversation the way torturers in spy movies dunk their victims’ heads back into the water once they get a gulp of air. “Isn’t it so easy to mistake Giavanni and Givonnio?”

And poor, naïve Kosuke is still under the belief they’re talking about tea, and she needs to make a fair impression, so she says: “They do taste very similar!”

And the girls don identical looks of bewilderment and say together, “Giavanni and Givonnio are _handbags._ ”

So Kosuke laughs like a demented hyena and claims, “I was joking!” Then she takes a deep gulp of spitting hot tea before she can stop herself.

 _Then_ she just about chokes it all up over all three of them because who on Earth does she see across the room—in a handsome white three-piece suit, talking to a trio of partygoers—than Tamaki Suoh?

_Whatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehellwhatthehell_

In the midst of her panic, wide-eyed and stiff as stone, Kosuke supposes this isn’t impossible. Actually, scratch that. Kosuke is an idiot for not considering this. Maybe. Is she? She knew Tamaki has always been maid-and-butler, golden-spoon, house-with-a-ballroom rich but whyyyyy does he _HAVE TO BE HERE?_

Actually, no, this is fine. Tamaki is fine. So what if he sees her? He’ll probably freak, but that’s just Tamaki. Maybe Haruhi even told him Kosuke is on an outing with her estranged father. It’s fine…

…except that even if Haruhi told him that, he has no idea about the heirdom and apprenticeship and all that other stuff and if he says something wrong he can send everything crashing down.

DaaaaammmmmniiiiiiitttdamnitdamnitdamnitALLTOHELL.

“I need to excuse myself,” Kosuke abruptly tells the women. “It was a you meeting pleasure.”

She throws in a little curtsy for good measure, and turns away. As she speed-walks to the nearest exit (“What did she say?”), she has to remind herself not to be angry. Tamaki is just here. He hasn’t done anything wrong. The problem is just that Tamaki is a sweet, sincere, caring _blabbermouth_ and could out her in two words, robbing her of the opportunity offered.

Kosuke makes it outside and slows to a more unnoteworthy pace. Slow enough to not look like she’s running, but briskly enough to appear to have a destination in mind and no time to talk. Maybe she shouldn’t even be running. Keeping an eye on Tamaki may be better. Just to know where he is and what he’s doing.

Then, so very much out of nowhere, a man pointedly steps in front of her and asks, “Kosuke Amida?”

“Yes…?”

“Mr. Amida and Mr. Ootori want to speak with you.”

Alright. This is probably not bad.

Kosuke follows the man back inside, into a new room not as crowded but no less regal. Though there aren’t any food stations or beverage fountains, there are tables draped in snowy white cloths and decorated with simple candles. A place to get off your feet, Kosuke guesses.

Shigeo is sitting at one such table, and across from him is Mr. Ootori. Even when he isn’t looking at her, Kosuke is intimidated. He is not at all ugly, just so… _severe._ Sharp eyes, sharp cheekbones, sharp goatee, no kidding! Behind his glasses his eyes are just as dark as his hair, which is slicked neatly back.

Kosuke panics for a second because she still has her tea and they’re not drinking anything so they might think her drinking without them is tacky and okay now a waiter is taking her cup away and that kind of sucks because it was good tea and she didn’t finish it.

She takes a seat beside Shigeo, but not before giving a respectable bow at the waist. Mr. Ootori does not respond. Kosuke almost shivers when he looks at her.

Shigeo discreetly nudges her leg from under the table. Right. Introduction. “Kosuke N—Amida. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Yoshio Ootori.” He keeps his eyes on her while she takes a seat. “How old are you, Miss Amida?”

The name _Amida_ is going to take a lot to get used to. “I’m nineteen.”

“Are you in college right now?”

Kosuke swallows. Shigeo is watching her closely. “Circumstances have…caused me to take a year off. I was going to attend Seneca.”

Judging by Shigeo’s very subtle shift in his seat, this is the wrong answer. Probably because Seneca is the place for Karuizawa girls who had to apply for scholarships, and not a gold-and-silver college for those born with the birthright of attending.

Mr. Ootori doesn’t react other than the brief raise of an eyebrow. She wonders just how much of Shigeo’s story he’s been told. “What were your grades like in high school?”

“Almost straight A’s.” Kosuke knows that maybe she should lie a little more, say she got nothing but hundreds, but she wonders how much can be crosschecked. Also, why is she being interrogated?

“Why almost?”

“…Physical education wasn’t my strong suit.”

If she didn’t know any better, she’d say the brief narrow of his eyes was almost in amusement. Probably not. “You don’t need to be nervous.”

“I—I’m not—”

“You’re stiff as a board. Relax.”

Only then does Kosuke realize that yes, she is so rigid she’s gone sore. She relaxes. So does Shigeo.

“Mr. Amida has already told me about what has happened in your life recently. I’d like to hear it in your own words.”

She has to take a second and prepare herself. She must recall everything that Shigeo has told her and have no discrepancies.

“My mother—Emiko—died in a car accident with my stepfather a little about a year ago.” Stepfather, she has to use the word stepfather. “I had to put all my plans for the future on hold so I could take care of my siblings.”

Mr. Ootori raises a brow and looks to Shigeo. “You didn’t mention any siblings.”

What? Kosuke gives him a sideways look, and even though he doesn’t look at her, she knows Shigeo is mentally yelling at her for that. It occurs to her that she can’t make him look like the bad guy in any way. She doesn’t have to fake a loving bond between a father and daughter finally reunited, but she can’t be bitter.

“My mother and stepfather had two children together. Their names are Minami and Hitsuji, and they’re just children. Eight and five. I don’t think he knew about them before he found out about what…happened.”

Thankfully, Shigeo picks up the line she’s feeding him. They have to work off each other. “What happened between Emiko and I was unfortunate, but I wanted to respect her wishes and leave her be. I only checked every now and then to see if she was doing well, nothing more.”

Mr. Ootori accepts that and turns back to her. “Go on.”

“I’ve been taking care of all three of us since. I’ve managed, but it hasn’t been easy.”

“Money?”

“That, and children.”

“I have four.” The unsaid _I understand_ eases Kosuke a little more.

“Between the restaurant that my mom and stepdad had, and all the savings and inheritance, we do have a fair amount of money to live on. But I need to stay at home to watch the children, so I can’t attend college and get a good employment. Our income is frozen.”

“Then Shigeo stepped in?”

Now she has to pick up a paintbrush and paint Shigeo in good light. She can do this.

“Yes. I was very, very surprised when he came to me—incredibly grateful, absolutely, but you have to understand…”

“I do.”

“He said that he wanted to offer me the opportunity to be the heiress to the Amida company.” No visible reaction from Shigeo, so all good. “I’m not very knowledgeable in the business world, unfortunately, so I’m kind of his apprentice right now. Learning about everything I need to know if I want to run the company one day.”

Kosuke knows that she’s made another misstep. Shigeo shifts again. Mr. Ootori leans forward and places his elbows on the table, folding his hands together.

“How much do you know about ‘the business world’?”

Uh-oh.

“Not…much, as I’ve said.”

“Did you recognize anyone attending this event?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Do you know what Ootori Medical does?”

Uh-oh. “I believe it has ties to…the…medical field.”

_Stupid._

Mr. Ootori’s eyebrows furrow just so. For the first time, he’s starting to look displeased, and Kosuke can feel her grip on the metaphorical lifeline slipping. “Do you know what _Amida_ Medical does?”

“It designs a-and manufactures machines and equipment for hospital use.”

“Do you know Amida Medical’s yearly revenue?”

“…No.”

_Stupidstupid._

“Do you know the partners of Amida Medical?”

“No…”

_Stupidstupidstupid._

“Besides your father, can you name any other figures of Amida Medical?”

“…”

_Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid._

“Miss Amida, how would you describe your own intelligence level?”

And suddenly, with no warning, like pure feral instinct, offense-triggered anger flares up in Kosuke too quickly to stifle down and she hotly declares, “I’m not _stupid._ ”

Those words hang in the air.

 _This is it,_ Kosuke thinks as her stomach plummets through the floor and Shigeo wipes his brow with his thumb. _You’ve done it, you colossal idiot. All you had to do was keep your calm and not raise your voice and you couldn’t do that because you’re the most helpless creature to walk the face of this Earth. God is watching you, and he is shaking His head in pity._

As she thinks this, she can physically feel everything starting to fade away, like this whole situation was a brightly-lit room and she just flicked the light off. The dress is now horribly scratchy, this luxurious mansion feels like an abandoned building, and the trio sitting at the table has now become a hundred-person chorus pointing at her and chiding, _You really thought this was going to work out, didn’t you? What are you, braindead? You think this is a fairytale?_

However…

Everything does not just instantly feel fine again, but Mr. Ootori finally reacts with nothing more than leaning back in his seat again. There’s no way in hell he likes that she just raised her voice at him, but he doesn’t seem offended. Not really.

He’s waiting for her to continue.

“The… _business world_ is something I was not expecting to have an effect on my life. I thought I was a completely average person with no ties to it. Now that Shigeo has made this offer to me—” She doesn’t have time to decide if calling him Shigeo was bad. “—I plan on doing everything I can to learn about every aspect of Amida Medical and the people and environment that influence it. The only reason I haven’t learned anything now is because…”

She glances over to the man her mother ran away from. He is watching her.

“…he didn’t want to overwhelm me, with everything that’s happened.”

Kosuke doesn’t want to sound pathetic, but she can’t help but keep her voice soft. Apologetic, even. Mr. Ootori doesn’t say anything, just nods at her to go on with maybe the gentlest look he’s managed all night, which still isn’t gentle.

“I have been in a very bad position this past year, Mr. Ootori. Not just financially. My mom and stepdad were…I lost them. And I had to figure out how to keep going without them to help me. I love my brother and sister to _death,_ I’d do anything for them, but I didn’t know what I _was_ going to do. For a long time, I was terrified that we were going to run out of money, and I wouldn’t be able to take care of us anymore. Being offered what Shigeo is offering me is _amazing,_ it is, and I’m so, so grateful, but it’s just so much to take in at once.”

Those words hang in the air. In the metaphorical room, Kosuke thinks that maybe someone has turned the lights halfway up again.

Mr. Ootori’s hands are folded on the table, and for just a second, his pinky taps on the tablecloth as he thinks. His dark eyes go from Shigeo to Kosuke and back again. It’s not horrible anymore, being looked at by him, but she’s anxious. He is clearly considering something and she has no idea what.

Why is she here, again? Did she ever get that answer?

Mr. Ootori speaks again, in a slow voice that is a little hesitant, but has that _This is the last thing I need to know_ tone. “Did Shigeo tell you why he and your mother divorced? Why she left, and why you never met him before?”

And Kosuke has to wonder, does _he_ know? Because if he does, and she agrees, she won’t be able to say what it is. Even if he doesn’t, she isn’t going to know that.

More importantly is what the question really is. “Do you know why your parents divorced at all?” or “Do you know why, and if so, do you still trust this man?”

Kosuke can’t afford to even look at Shigeo, because no matter what expression he has—warning, panicked, indifferent—she can’t let him affect her in any way. This man is not her father, he is a dealmaker. She is his partner in this scheme they are planning. No love, no trust, just business. She needs him, and he might just need her, too.

So in this scheme, they have roles, and Kosuke is the poor, helpless, but not stupid daughter Shigeo has finally found, and in such a sorry state, graciously extended his hand to save her. She is the damsel. She has to make him the hero.

“He offered to tell me, but I told him it doesn’t matter.” She goes on without waiting to see how either of them react. “He’s offering me more help than I could have ever asked anyone for. That’s all I need to know.”

That is that, she thinks. The period at the end of the sentence, because the silence that follows is final. Kosuke keeps her eyes on Mr. Ootori but doesn’t stare, Shigeo does stare, and Mr. Ootori only breaks his gaze away to look down at the table to contemplate once again.

Finally, he stands up. Shigeo follows, and so does Kosuke. Mr. Ootori and Shigeo give each other a bow that’s more of a nod, and Kosuke again bends at the waist when he turns to her.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Amida. Mr. Amida, I will…stay in touch.”

He walks away.

Kosuke and Shigeo stand there side-by-side, not looking at each other, assessing what has just happened.

Finally, after maybe fifteen full seconds of silence, Kosuke clears her throat and asks, “Did that go well?”

“Much better than I thought it would.”

The slight relief in his voice is not directed at her. It has to do with whatever this whole thing is about. Speaking of, Kosuke is now significantly more confused than she was before she came to the party.

“Who is Mr. Ootori?” Shigeo pushes their chairs back to the table and isn’t looking at her, but she goes on. “Why did I need to meet him?”

“If you need to know, you’ll find out.” Shigeo wholly ignores her flat look in favor of looking down at his wristwatch. “Let’s return to the party. We don’t want to look antisocial.”

Kosuke doesn’t get to agree or disagree. She hears Mr. Ootori’s voice again, a little far away and maybe .2% more chipper, and thinks nothing of it. But then she hears a slightly louder, 100% more chipper, and _horrifyingly familiar_ voice and freezes in place.

She can’t turn around. He might recognize her. She instead looks to the window to catch his reflection and _damn it._

Kosuke grabs Shigeo’s elbow as calmly as she can, and keeps her face normal but her voice urgent as she whispers, _“I know the man Mr. Ootori is talking to.”_

Shigeo almost whips his head around to look, and Kosuke watches the reflection. Tamaki—sweet, kind, why-the-hell-is-he-here Tamaki—is nothing but smiles as he talks to Mr. Ootori with far too much familiarity for Kosuke to be comfortable with. Mr. Ootori isn’t smiling, but he seems like he _could_ in the younger man’s presence. So not only is he also familiar with Tamaki, but he has at least a semblance of fondness for him and that is terrible.

“Tamaki Suoh?” The way he hisses _Suoh_ tells Kosuke that this is extra terrible. _“How?”_

“It doesn’t _matter._ If he sees me, he’s going to freak out and ask why I’m here and he might say stuff no one here is supposed to know!”

Thank goodness, Shigeo doesn’t argue and instead looks subtly around the room to think of what to do. Kosuke is facing away from Tamaki, and she is holding onto the thin hope that he won’t recognize her from behind, all gussied up in a dress.

Shigeo puts a hand on her shoulder and gently nudges her forward. “I’m going to call the driver to take you home. I’ll tell everyone you weren’t feeling good. Don’t stop to talk to anyone. _Go._ ”

Kosuke does, briskly and in terror, praying so very hard that her leaving won’t catch Tamaki’s eye. She makes it out of the room and back outside, through the paved walkway to the courtyard and finally to the limousine waiting to carry her away.

Kosuke does not manage to keep her promise to not let her dress touch anything but her body. The second she makes it home and locks the door behind her, she slumps against the door, almost boneless, wondering if everything really just happened and if it was for anything.


	11. Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kosuke and her father talk business.

Kosuke waits.

She waits.

And she waits.

And she waits a little more.

But she is slowly and surely losing her mind, because she hasn't gotten a single word from Shigeo for a full week.

No phone calls, no letters, no _anything._

Every morning that she wakes up to start her same routine of getting the children ready for school and cleaning the house and running the errands, the feeling of waking up after a weird dream intensifies. The details of the party are starting to slip away. She can't remember the dress in as much clarity, or what Mr. Ootori looked like, or the ride back to her house.

It isn't _unlike_ how she felt after the night at the Blue Tower—in particular, the repeated question of _Did I really do that?—_ but it is better in a way that isn't…better. She's confused and bewildered, but at least she doesn't get queasy when she thinks about it, or remembers the horrid feeling of clammy hands on her arm.

The people in Kosuke's circle know more about the party than the Blue Tower, too. Given, that they know something _at all_ is a huge difference.

Kosuke has elected to keep details private, though it isn't easy. She didn't think she was going to _have_ to come up with a cover story for Haruhi. She had fully intended on venting the details of what had happened to her friend not because she was expecting Haruhi to take care of anything for her, but because maybe the older woman could figure out answers where she couldn't.

Tamaki's out-of-nowhere appearance at the party, however, meant that she had to keep her mouth sealed shut. She could confirm now that Tamaki hadn't noticed her, thank goodness. He either would have confronted her himself in all his top-of-his-lungs glory, or Haruhi would mention something Tamaki had told her.

Haruhi does not like that Kosuke won't tell her anything, and Kosuke can't blame her, because she's all but certain that she is quite horrible at hiding when something is wrong. She's sure that Haruhi wouldn't mention anything to Tamaki if Kosuke just asked, but she is horribly cautious as of late, so Haruhi gets nothing. Kosuke does not describe the party, or Mr. Ootori. Everything is under lock and key.

This is…fine. Kosuke can just keep going as if nothing is wrong, no big deal. She's done that so far and…yeah.

What Haruhi does know now is that there is a "deal" involved in this. If Shigeo gets what he wants, he will set Kosuke and her siblings for life. Supposedly. So in spite of her set jaw and furrowed brows when Kosuke's stress peeks through, she's understanding.

Ranka is not.

Neither is Tamaki.

"I just cannot wrap my head around the idea of not being in your daughter's life for almost twenty years and trying to use a fancy little _dinner date_ to make up for 7,300 days of abandonment." Ranka slams his teacup down on the saucer hard enough to pierce Kosuke's ears. Haruhi's, too, judging by the flinch. "What kind of man _does that?!"_

"A despicable one," Tamaki agrees. He's so enraged Kosuke is feeling physical heat coming off him. He is as red as a fire. "Absolutely heartless."

Ranka nods. "I'm sorry, dear, but that man could give you a gold brick every day for the rest of forever and I'd still think you naïve for trusting him."

Kosuke explains what she has explained five hundred times now and will explain five hundred more. "I do not _trust him._ He wanted to have dinner and talk and that's it. He's not a demon."

"He is in _my_ book."

Tamaki cools down about two degrees so he can look at her and ask, "What did you talk about? Unless he spent every moment apologizing for what he's done, I don't see what other conversations were so interesting."

"Private stuff, no offense."

Haruhi sighs and sets her fork down. Something in the breath makes Kosuke think she actually does agree with her father and fiancé but has to side with Kosuke as per best friend sympathy rules. "Would you two please back up a little? She hasn't done anything wrong and she doesn't have to apologize for anything."

Normal Tamaki returns with a surprised blink, and frowning deeply, he reaches across the table to pat Kosuke's hand. It's not hard: he is a very lanky man. "We don't mean to make you feel like you need to apologize for anything." Then Fury Tamaki returns in all his crimson glory. He's _growling._ "But you shouldn't be going near ten miles of him!"

"He hasn't _done_ anything."

"That's our point." Ranka twirls his spoon in his teacup. "He hasn't been doing anything for nineteen years."

"He said he was respecting my mom's wishes." Ranka and Tamaki both fix her with the same half-confused, half-enraged look. "Mom didn't want him to talk to me, so he didn't."

"Even af—?" Ranka catches himself, pressing a finger to his lips. One could almost hear him mentally chiding himself for going that far, but he returns to his anger, albeit a little cooler. "And why, pray tell, did your mother want him far, far away?"

"I…don't know."

Tamaki blinks. "Did she never tell you?"

"I didn't even know what his _name_ was before he showed up. Mom _never_ talked about him."

A silence lingers over the table for a minute. This is not the peaceful little lunch date Kosuke had been hoping for when she'd gotten the invitation. The Fujiokas and Tamaki are back in Karuizawa for the weekend, staying once again at Misuzu's pension. Kosuke had been stupid, really, to think that it would've just been another casual how-has-everything-been catchup meeting and not a let's-talk-about-the-estranged-dad-that-took-you-to-a-party catchup meeting. At the very least they waited until Minami and Hitsuji went outside to play before they jumped on her like tigers.

Kosuke has asked Haruhi to keep most details under wraps until there's finally an outcome. For now, only Haruhi knows Shigeo's name—but only his _first_ name—and that there's some kind of deal Kosuke can make with him. As far as Ranka and Tamaki were concerned, her father was a nameless man who struggled to find her in the wake of Emiko's death and had taken her out to a dinner. No details, and that's how it's going to stay if nothing comes out of this.

"You're not stupid, Kosuke." Tamaki's sincere voice is always hard to listen to for Kosuke. Somehow he knows exactly what to say and it hurts. "I don't know what your plans are, but if you're looking at maybe keeping in touch, I won't tell you that you can't. Just… _please_ figure out what his motives are."

See, now Kosuke _wishes_ Tamaki knew everything, because maybe then he could bless her with some peace of mind. She just doesn't know what else he'll do along with that.

"Can we please change the subject? I just want to relax a little." Kosuke stabs a strawberry on her plate with her fork. "How's the wedding planning coming along?"

Ranka blows a strand of long, reddish hair out of his eyes. He has cooled down to mild annoyance. "It'd be going a lot better if people would stop trying to turn my daughter's wedding into their paychecks."

The wedding, which hadn't even set a date and probably wouldn't for quite a while now, is actually not something Haruhi and Kosuke discuss often. It's not _never_ talked of, and it's not for any bad reason, but it tends to get stressful for Haruhi, and she'd rather avoid the topic when they chat. Kosuke knows a few details, like how the only expensive thing Haruhi point-blank asked for was a "fancy tuna" bar (whatever the hell _that_ is), but for the most part there are only basic ideas.

Thus, when Ranka says that, Kosuke can't help but be confused and looks to Haruhi for an answer.

"It's not always bad," she begins, because Haruhi does like to assume good things of people, "I mean, I get that this is their business so they want to find ways to make money. But still, there are a lot of people just blatantly ignoring what we want so they can sell us something more expensive."

Tamaki adds, "It's mostly venue and catering. We have over _two hundred_ bakers begging to make the cake for us, and the ones we've turned down keep coming back with 'better offers.' Several upped their usual prices specifically for us." He sighs and takes a sip of tea. "Hikaru and Kaoru get under my skin every chance they get, but they aren't trying to snag our wallets."

"It'd be easier to manage if Kyoya were more available." An almost sad look passes over Haruhi's face. "Not that I can blame him…He deals with so much already."

So far Kosuke has only heard names and stories about the high school club friends of Haruhi and Tamaki. Tamaki very much wants Kosuke to meet all of them, but she is busy and so are they, so they never really even _attempt_ to make plans. She knows that they were all in the Host Club that made the hearts of Ouran girls soar for years before its disbanding—i.e., they all graduated and could no longer keep the Club going, but are all as tight-knit as ever, and haven't gone through much change.

She's also aware that despite all their quirks and misadventures and the twins' seeming glee in torturing Tamaki to death, they all love each other like family. The Hitachiin twins had taken it upon themselves to design the bride and groom's clothes, for example, and though the "Zukas" (Hani- and Mori-) had no specific skills to offer, they were more than willing to help with anything at all.

Kyoya O-something, Tamaki's best friend and former vice-president of the Club, is _supposed_ to be closely involved with the planning. She doesn't know details and won't pry, but all Kosuke knows is that it's something or another with his family business that's keeping him extremely busy. Haruhi and Tamaki have both offered to let him peacefully step out of the planning, but he apparently insists on keeping in.

"At least we have some _good_ helping hands," says Ranka. "I can't say much for his sense of style, but Yuzuru knows how to coordinate with venue planners, I'll give him that much. Maybe Anne-Sophie can tell him about color coordination when she gets back."

Tamaki perks up like he always does when his mother is mentioned. Kosuke knows the details of the whole story: his parents' affair, the deal Tamaki's grandmother made with Anne-Sophie, the years Tamaki spent without her…She was happy that _he_ got a happy ending, at least. The two were reunited with the surprising help of his grandmother, who went through a monumental change of heart. Her visit back home to France had been prolonged due to a flare in her symptoms, but Tamaki saw her on a regular basis now. His family was not so broken anymore, especially after his parents' very private wedding.

"Kosuke, you should meet her when she comes back," he told her. "She'd love to! Promise you will."

Kosuke chuckled and promised. Couldn't help it. His sincerity was too powerful.

For just a little while, they all sit like that, talking about the wedding and family and this and that. The Fujiokas' apartment building may or may not be in talks of closing, but neither father nor daughter take it seriously, as the owners have "talked" about it several times before. Only once do Minami and Hitsuji run back inside to show her a cool rock they found. It is indeed very, very cool. Hitsuji pointedly ignores Tamaki and it clearly crushes him. Kosuke cannot explain why her little brother doesn't like him. He just doesn't.

While they're finishing up their tea, Misuzu comes gliding up to the table in a little twirl of layered skirts. Kosuke is incredibly jealous of the pension owner. Not only does she never break a sweat, she somehow manages to keep her makeup, hair, and _apron_ immaculate all through the day.

"How was everything?" she asks. Her painted lips go from a smile to a frown. "Don't spare my feelings!"

"Wonderful as always, Misuzu." Ranka winks at her, and she winks back. The two were close, and many of the Fujiokas' trips to Karuizawa were really just excuses to see one another. "You never disappoint."

"Oh, you stop that." Misuzu flitters a hand at him, blushing, and her face becomes a little more plastered-on as she turns to Kosuke. "What about you? Was everything satisfactory?"

Misuzu…okay, Kosuke doesn't know if Misuzu likes her or not. Misuzu is very much aware that Kosuke is the eldest daughter of the Nakaharas, AKA the owners of the Lily Bowl, AKA one of the most successful restaurants this side of the mountain. Honestly, Kosuke never thought they were in much competition with one another even _before_ it closed down for good. It was a restaurant vs a pension. All she knows is that every time they have dinner here, Misuzu is very, very, very attentive on Kosuke's reception. Like she is both a rival and a mentor.

"More than satisfactory," Kosuke promises her, trying her best to neither look afraid nor intimidating. "The strawberry cake was very light!"

It's always specific compliments that get Misuzu's genuine smile to return. Mentor. "Oh, thank you, sweetie!" Her smile freezes. Rival. "What about the chicken? Was it too dry? You were cutting it up for ages!"

"Oh, no," says Haruhi, "that was Tamaki's."

"She…cut up his food for him?"

Haruhi huffs, half a laugh and half a sigh, and pointedly remarks, "She can't inactivate 'Mom Mode'."

Kosuke is aware that she has said something to her. But Tamaki has a splotch of whipped cream on his lip and she's too busy dabbing it away to pay enough attention, so she just dumbly goes, "What?"

Misuzu folds her hands in front of her lap and seriously says, "Well, none of that's really why I came over here. One of your neighbors just called saying she knew you'd probably be here. Apparently there's a customer waiting at the Lily Bowl?"

Kosuke and Haruhi's eyes _immediately_ find one another.

"Uh-oh." As casually as she can manage, Kosuke scoots back from the table and stands to her feet. "I better go give them my…apologies."

Tamaki frowns. "I thought you said this happens a lot?"

"It does! It does, but—you know, some aren't as forgiving as others. One waited a whole two hours just to tell me how inconsiderate a person I was. Damned my family name."

She is sad to say that _that_ is actually not a lie she made up on the spot.

"It would definitely be rude to keep them waiting," Haruhi says. Far too agreeably for her, but it's okay, Kosuke knows she's trying. "You go on ahead, Kosuke. We'll watch over the kids while you go."

"Thank you so much; tell them I'll be back soon. I'll call when I'm—Haruhi, don't put your elbows on the table!—I'll call when I'm done!"

"Be careful." Ranka turns to keep talking to her as she moves for the door. "If they try to give you any trouble, you tell _them_ what-for."

_If only,_ Kosuke thinks to herself as she leaves.

* * *

The twenty-minute walk between the Lily Bowl and the pension becomes a fifteen-minute walk thanks to Kosuke speed-walking the whole way there. Some folks walking the sidewalks give her sideways looks, and she wonders if she looks scared. She feels scared…or something that feels very similar to being scared. If it is who she thinks it is, then she has to be careful not to get her hopes up. True, he probably wouldn't have come all this way just to say it didn't work out, but still. He's unpredictable, and she only _started_ to get that idea when he showed up on her doorstep after 19 years.

As she finally walks up to the outside of the Lily Bowl, she neither sighs in relief nor stiffens in anxiety. He's pulled a car all the way up to the gate this time—he must have walked some distance the last time he was here—and though it isn't as gaudy as a limousine, it's definitely of a higher price than most Karuizawan residents would drive.

The car's ignition cuts off as she approaches, and Shigeo steps out. He's in slacks and a buttoned shirt, neither casual nor sophisticated. He doesn't make eye contact with her as she approaches.

"We should go in," is the only greeting she gets. "This is better for a private environment."

Swallowing, Kosuke leads the way across the front yard and to the front door. Already she is running every possible outcome of this through her head and mentally practicing her own emotions. If he says it didn't work out, she will be disappointed but accepting. If he says it did, she will be over-the-moon with joy and jubilation…and also fear.

There is only one table for them to sit at, and Kosuke brushes aside papers and pens—bills, more specifically—for them. That's probably very ironic, considering the topic at hand.

"It occurred to me that I probably should've gotten a phone number from you." Shigeo pulls his chair back and sits. "Not that this should've been discussed over a phone call."

Kosuke clears her throat. "So there will be a discussion, then."

"A long one, I'll gander."

Okay. Okay. This might be good…unless the discussion is going to be about how sorry he is that he won't be able to help, and Kosuke is carefully neutral about this whole situation, but she _doesn't want to hear that._

(Actually, nevermind—she doubts he's ever apologized for anything in his life.)

"The man that we talked to at the party, Yoshio Ootori, is the head of Japan's most successful medical technology and care company."

"…Right."

"Over the course of the last two decades, we have occasionally discussed a possible partnership between our businesses. Nothing came out of it before. He didn't see much use in allying with a smaller-scale company and I didn't see the need to leech off someone else's established success to establish some of my own."

Bitterness laces his words, and Kosuke thinks back to the conversation they had at the party. Mr. Ootori's questions and comments were almost all directed at _her._ Which, considering he'd been told the story of her possible heirdom, might make sense. It sounded to Kosuke like _she_ was a factor in the two's possible partnership.

"Recent…developments in both his business and mine have changed our perspectives somewhat." Shigeo taps his fingers on the table, once, twice. "We are considerably more open-minded in coming together. However, we both still have reasons to hesitate. Do you understand?"

She mulls it over. "This _deal_ that you've been talking about…Is it a compromise so you two will work together?"

He pauses, like he would have preferred a simple "yes", but nods. "He and I would both like a sort of safety net. Or rather…a contract to ensure our concerns are addressed and that neither of us will back out the second we're slightly dissatisfied."

Kosuke doesn't nod so much as she slowly bobs her head back and forth once. She is becoming increasingly concerned with the implication that she's about to be handed a _motherlode_ of responsibility in a field she knows all of three sentences about.

Shigeo watches her for a moment, almost unblinkingly. Kosuke watches him back just to be unintimidated. It's not the same, though. Shigeo is considering her. Thinking something over. He and Mr. Ootori at least have one thing in common, and that's that you can see their minds working through their eyes.

"What did you realize when you were at the party?"

"About what?"

"Everything. The people, the setting, what everyone was talking about." He quickly adds, "Be completely honest. Don't try to kiss up."

For a moment, she puts herself back into those white heels and remembers. Everything had been lush and grandiose and no doubt the dreams of many.

At the same time, her awe and wonder had stretched over the line into bafflement more than once. The house had been absolutely stunning, but she couldn't come to terms that it was a _house._ Those two girls had been beautiful and friendly enough, but those brand names and companies sounded alien to her ears. Most of all, it was how just about everyone acted regal and composed, not necessarily stuck-up, but portraying only the most sophisticated of humans, even if they weren't conscious about it.

"It was all very impressive, but a few things sort of…weirded me out." She wonders if a man of his standing thinks poorly of that phrase, _weirded me out,_ but he just rolls a hand at her to continue. "I know it might be normal for _them_ to live in houses that big and behave the way they do, but it isn't for me. It's just odd."

This had been the answer he was expecting: he intertwined his fingers halfway through her explanation.

"As you said, all of that is considered normal for us. We are the elite." He sweeps his eyes, _her_ eyes, around the little dining-room-turned-living-area with a hint of disdain. "To me, living in a house this small, not knowing the names of Japan's most profitable companies, not having proper clothes to wear to a party, _that_ is odd."

Kosuke wills herself not to be offended, because she knows he has a point. Okay, yeah, it was kind of selfish in that rich-people way to look at those who couldn't afford to sling their money every which way and say _"You're weird,"_ but…fair enough. It is two different worlds.

"There are many, many things that I find bizarre that you do not and vice-versa. What I think is cheap, you would probably find expensive. What I find common, you would find rare. This includes many of our practices. Did owners of other restaurants around here send you birthday wishes as a sign of good will?"

The idea of Misuzu sending her a birthday card before they ever even met sounds laughable. Kosuke shakes her head.

"Have you ever had a staff of cleaners and cooks and groundskeepers to care for your estate?"

Would this place even be considered _an_ estate? Kosuke shakes her head.

"Did you ever carefully mind your actions, knowing that everything you did or said to anyone influenced the prosperity of your family's business?"

Well, to be honest, every single time Kosuke has fallen sick she had to keep it under wraps because she lived in a restaurant, but…no. She shakes her head.

"Everyone in this circle of the world depends on one another. Everyone knows it, even if they don't want to admit it. One person turning their back on you could send everything you've worked for spiraling into the ground. Because of this, people will go to certain lengths to establish a connection or keep one intact."

Confusion level: 50%. "Okay…?"

Shigeo leans forward just a bit. "Every member of a family has to pull their weight to keep their children, their parents, their brothers, and their sisters from afloat. A three-year old child will have such responsibilities one day if they don't already."

Confusion level: 100%. "I understand."

"They may not like it—I know more than a few who despise it—but they know how selfish it would be to let their family pay for their own inaction. So many people serve as the bridge between their family and another because they know that it's what they need to do."

Confusion level: 110%. "Alright."

"The Ootori family is no different. Every member, from the oldest to the youngest, has a responsibility to each other. All of Mr. Ootori's children know this."

Confusion level: 500%.

"This includes his youngest son, who is willing to assist in bringing our businesses together to mutually benefit both of us."

Confusion level: 1000%.

"In order for him to do that, and for this partnership to happen at all, you will need to do the same as him."

Confusion level: 49208%

"Mr. Ootori has agreed to an arranged marriage between you and his youngest son."

Confusion lev—

Confu—

Con—wh—

What—

What.

What.

The

Hell?

* * *

Did he just—

He _did_ just say

" _Arranged marriage"_

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

_._

… _didn't he?_

* * *

Time stops.

No, it just…twists.

She's in Wonderland again.

This is the disorienting fall down the rabbit hole.

Just—okay.

_Breathe_ is the protocol her brain sends to her body. _Breathe or you're going to die._

She breathes. Probably. She doesn't die.

She cannot do…anything. For just a minute, she has to just stay put.

One little thought will open up floodgates and she'll be overwhelmed.

So, breathe. Breathe and wait. Breathe.

Shigeo is watching her. Whatever.

Perhaps she should break this down bit by bit.

"Marriage."

The lawful binding caused by the love between two people. The connection between spouses. When people are _married,_ they have a wedding, usually one that involves a white dress and black tux and a whole lot of people congratulating them and wishing them well. After this, they sleep in the same bed, they live in the same house, they kiss and cuddle and brush the hair out of each others' eyes, they tell each other what's bothering them and what their day has been like, they have to consider the other when making decisions, they possibly make children together and raise them, and maybe become grandparents, and if all goes well they will be together until their hair has turned white. They are in love and they are happy.

This was what her parents had lived.

(Not entirely. Neither of her parents would ever have white hair and if Kosuke or Minami or Hitsuji have children of their own one day, Marti and Emiko will only be known to them by stories.)

She knows what marriage is. She had thought about marrying Kohta one day in that non-serious imagining way that teenage girls do. She had focused more on the rings and the wedding, not so much agreeing to be someone else's in return for them being hers.

And… _arranged_ marriages.

She's only ever heard of that actually happening in history class and it was always between princesses and kings and earls and other nobles. But wasn't all that supposed to be drastic eras for medieval measures? That was when everyone was starving and trying to kill each other, and no one trusted anyone unless they were "family", hence why lords would ship off their daughters to strangers to ensure backup incase the enemies declared war.

That people _still partake in arranged marriages_ is mind-boggling. She cannot wrap her head around the idea that anyone—especially those who live in palaces and won't wear clothing that isn't made by thousand-dollar designers—could be so desperate that they would agree to bind themselves to someone for the rest of their lives. Or so _horrifyingly_ desperate that they would agree to bind their _children._

She recalls that the party Shigeo had taken her two was for two people in an arranged marriage, but admittedly, she just let that go in one ear and out the other at the time. They'd had a "choice", but the thought occurred to her again: how is it a choice if everyone's pressuring you to take one specific option?

At least they had been allowed to grow up together.

This "youngest son"—

The man her father—

—her father, who she met a little over a month ago—

—wants her to marry…

She doesn't even know his _name._

She doesn't know his _name_ or what he _looks_ like or his _personality_ and she's being asked to agree to marry him, for the rest of her life? Meaning that from now on, if she ever finds a spark of interest in another man, and considers maybe being with him, she'll have to decline because sorry, she's taken, by an absolute stranger.

And _yes,_ Kosuke has had her parents, her siblings, her friends old and new, but she's never had someone having _that_ much of a connection to her. No, she isn't of the ancient mindset that a wife is her husband's property, but she thinks that spouses are both individuals and a pair. Things that will affect her life with affect _his_ life and vice-versa.

And how in the actual _hell, THE ACTUAL HELL,_ is she going to explain this to Haruhi, Tamaki, and Ranka? Is it even POSSIBLE to explain this to her sib—

_He's going to be connected to her siblings, too!_

She can't even compare it to when Emiko had married Marti. She _knew_ Marti. She had looked at him and thought, _I really wish you were my dad._ Hitsuji and Minami know as much of Mr. Bachelor as she does.

"You're quiet."

Shigeo speaks, and now Kosuke is all too aware of _him,_ too. The deal that he had talked about, the reason that he had found her and dressed her up and introduced her to Mr. Ootori…This is it. This is his master plan all along.

In response to Shigeo's voice, Kosuke's mouth opens, closes…and she stands up, heading for the kitchen. She fills a glass with tap water, chugs it, and returns with more.

She just has to get her head screwed on right again.

"I need to summarize all this."

Shigeo says nothing.

"You have only _barely_ been aware that I've been alive for nineteen years. Only after my parents died did you actually seek me out, not out of good will or to extend comfort, but because you saw a _business opportunity._ And despite not even saying a word to me yet, you already decided that you would polish me up and present me to Mr. Ootori like a prized pig and say 'What about it?' and crossed your fingers hoping he'd say yes. If he _didn't,_ that was going to be it and you were going to leave. Now that he _has_ said yes, you're asking me to spend the rest of my life married to a stranger because that's the contract. _"_

She isn't shouting, exactly, but her words _feel_ hot as they leave her mouth. Her finger keeps jabbing onto the wooden tabletop until it hurts. She is the bewildered sort of angry, because now she is understanding perhaps just what had Emiko running for the hills all those years ago.

Kosuke was never seeking a proper relationship with him, or even an apology. But she doesn't think you can _get_ much lower than looking at your own flesh and blood and thinking, "I could use that to my advantage."

Shigeo's face remains static save for the gradual narrowing of his eyes as she yells at him. Kosuke honestly can't be bothered to give a crap about even being civil anymore. She is more offended than she thought was humanly possible.

"I don't appreciate what you're insinuating about my character," he says almost icily.

"What did I _insinuate?_ That's literally what's happening right now! You found out that the mother of your child died and you _pounced_ at the opportunity to—"

_BAM._

Shigeo's fist strikes down upon the table with a bang that makes Kosuke flinch hard. His hand has to be sore as all hell, but he doesn't mind it, instead pinning her with a glare that she would almost call _hateful._

"I couldn't care less what you think of me, but don't you _ever_ try to tell me how I felt about _anything_ in regards to your mother."

She doesn't back down. This whole thing makes her think of wolves, trying to growl and snarl and assert themselves. She can't think of a reason why she should care about angering him after he turned her into a chess piece. She simply makes a note of his reaction. She has confirmation now that he feels something about _something about_ Emiko.

"I told you from the beginning that I was not here to establish any kind of relationship and that I would leave if what I required wasn't given."

"I never _wanted_ to have a relationship with you. It just never crossed my mind that what you 'required' was selling me away."

"I told you already. This is a connection between my business and the Ootoris', not a sale."

Kosuke grips the edge of the table just to give her hands something to do. Her knuckles are stark white. "It doesn't matter how technical you want to get about it. You're using me as a bargaining chip, pure and simple, and nothing you say will make that sound alright."

"Well, personally, I'm not here to be scolded by a little girl about what's right and what's wrong. I'd just like to remind you of what I promised from day one."

Shigeo leans forward a bit, eyes hard as stone, not rising at all but suddenly very taller. For a split second, Kosuke considers whether she should try to just ride this out or tell him to get out now, leave, don't ever come back, you disgusting leech.

But then he says: "Financial security for you and your siblings for the rest of your lives."

Though her knee-jerk reaction is a huge _NO CHANCE IN HELL,_ her next one is more of dreadful consideration.

That _is_ what he promised her, and knowing now that he is intending on sucking her into _his_ world as _his_ heir and _his_ young and unmarried daughter, she honestly cannot think of how he wouldn't be able to keep that promise.

Kosuke's mind drifts to all the threats she has tried to defend her family from for the past year, each with a price tag. No way to get an education for a higher-paying job, a loan shark she still sends letters to lest he retaliate, taxes and bills and food…This whole time, Kosuke has been walking down a declining path. Slowly but surely, it was going lower and lower, and she didn't know what they were going to do when they were living by their spare coins.

Still…that doesn't mean that this isn't absolutely _ludicrous._ Just to not end up starving and penniless one day, she'd be given away to a stranger, bound into not one, but _two_ elite families in an elite world where she knew nothing about anything. For the rest of her _life._ _DECADES._

"I also want you to know this." His voice is not softer, but more…bargaining. "I don't simply mean I'm going to send you a paycheck every now and then to keep you supported here. This is going to be a _commitment,_ not a job. You aren't going to be able to take time off from this. _Because of that,_ you'd be fully ingrained into 'my world', as it were. You'll never have to worry about looking at price tags, costs for health and education, or wondering if you will be able to pay your bills in time. I would also promise you that anything you want would be at your command, but you don't strike me as a girl who focuses on pretty dresses and expensive cars."

No, she isn't. So she doesn't focus on that stuff. When she was little, she wanted to be rich enough one day to live in a house with a candy store in the walls and a pool the size of an ocean in the backyard. _Everyone_ wanted that because everyone is at least a little materialistic. In the real world, though, that's not something she considers.

What she _does_ consider is the times Minami and Hitsuji got sick and needed medicines that couldn't be bought over-the-counter, or how many times she's picked Minami up from school and wondered if they'd even have enough money to send her to college when she got old enough.

This is…

This is a nightmare.

To _marry_ a _stranger…_

She had no idea what would be expected of her. Would she be expected to cuddle and kiss him, call him cute little things like "honey" or "sweetheart", smile at him and blush when he complimented her? Would she have to be the epitome of a jubilant bride on her wedding day? Or was this _actually_ going to be the medieval-era political union, wherein the two of them would acknowledge each other as acquaintances at best and ignore each other otherwise?

Oh, god…Was she going to have to have _**children**_ with him? The thought made her physically ill very suddenly.

But.

_But._

She can't be old Kosuke anymore.

When her siblings wanted to be carried to bed, she'd let them cry and fuss because she wasn't strong enough to do it.

When her mother and father expressed their concerns for her future, she brushed them off with uncaring jokes and kept going as if she knew what she was doing.

If her parents ever thought before—or… _just_ before—the crash that killed them about the idea that if something ever happened to them, it was going to be lazy, stupid, uncaring Kosuke to take care of herself and her siblings…their nightmare had come true.

Kosuke cannot be that selfish anymore.

She doesn't have to love this or be happy about it. She can't be.

But she _can_ do it.

And she will.

Because…this is all she has left.

"Mr. Ootori has agreed to this already?"

She can see he is trying not to be smug. She hates it. "Yes, but he does want you to meet Kyoya first."

"And if I don't do this…everything is off the table?"

"Correct."

She thinks she knows, now, why Emiko ran away. She wonders if this is why she could never speak of him.

Shigeo stands to his feet, tucks the chair back under the table, and bows to her at the waist. "We can talk more about this later."

Just in his tone, however, she knew that they were both aware she'd already made up her mind.


	12. Thunderstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya's entire world as he knows it is changed.

Of all the empires in the business world that Kyoya can recall by name—and he can recall many, many things in fantastic detail, names being mere baselines—there have been perhaps not even five that were only controlled by one person. It's not that they had _no_ support, but rather they were the top of the pyramid, the point that all the sides came to.

For all others, it was a trapezoidal prism. That is, a pyramid that topped off in a square instead of a point. Even if there was one particular name that was most accredited to, there were others that had their hands on the wheel, too. If you were smart enough and (admittedly) lucky enough, you could map the organization so that even if those involved were important, they were not unlosable. People were protective of their money, of course, so while many liked to find ways to ensure their partners couldn't leave them, they also steered clear of deals that were basically handcuffs. If that person, or even that company, were to pull out, it would be ideal for it not to be like taking the leg off of a table.

Not even the Ootori family have made it as far as they have without help. It was hard to even call them a zaibatsu anymore, and yet they were still so often called that. They topped the pyramid, but they still had a base to maintain. Sometimes it was as easy as buying out the competition. Other times, there were contracts to be made. And other times still there was a dire need to prevent damage control—hence why all of Kyoya's siblings and many others are in arranged marriages.

DomenMedis one of the companies that the Ootoris do not _own,_ even if it might seem as such. It was a medical company that the general public was well aware of. Chances were, if you lived in Japan and had bandages and ointments at hand, they came from DomenMed _._ It was a household name, and that was what made it dangerous.

Daisuke Domen had inherited his father's role as the company's head, and much like his father before him, he was incredibly wary of his dealings with the Ootoris. The deal his father made and that he upkept made it so that DomenMed was the only company that the Ootoris had an _agreement_ with, rather than _owned—_ again, not that many would be able to see the difference. The Domens had made it clear from the day that pen touched paper that their partnership was never set in stone and that they could always pull out when they wanted. The Ootoris knew two things: that pulling in DomenMedwas too enticing to refuse, and there would never be reason for the company to ever want to pull out from such a lucrative partnership. The deal was struck.

So now DomenMedis a brick in the pyramid's base, and even though many don't want to admit it—Kyoya included—it is a very large, very important brick that is core in upholding the rest of the structure.

For decades now, predating even Kyoya's time, DomenMedhas had its owned-but-not-truly partnership with Ootori Medical. And for decades now, the head has made reminders of its impermanence. Because they had a leg to stand on, both of the Domen heads have been brave enough to quarrel with both of the Ootori heads. Instead of blindly accepting new regulations and business plans and trajectories, they spoke up, even disagreed. They were heard and listened to, but it was very seldom that their wants were met rather than compromised with.

Daisuke Domen was not a stupid man, and certainly not a bad one. Kyoya had never had any reason to actively dislike him, other than his inability to tell his daughter no. Daisuke was intelligent, even clever, and kindly. He just didn't understand that if you don't follow through on your threats, it's unlikely you'll be taken seriously.

Not that anyone _wanted_ to have DomenMedback out, but he'd made the threat perhaps fifty times now and still nothing had changed. Daisuke was a proud man who was more than aware that he was often looked down upon like a tantrum-throwing child. Specifically, one whose threats of running away from home were met with fond eye-rolls and an amused agreement to what he wanted.

The Domens were highly treasured, just not…feared. For the longest time, Kyoya and perhaps even his father had thought that they were foolish for not establishing otherwise.

Turns out, _they_ were the foolish ones for not being afraid.

The news that DomenMedwas pulling away from Ootori Medical—yes, truly this time, it's actually happening, this isn't just a threat—spread through the business world like wildfire.

Panic ensued.

See, Kyoya is not one to _panic._ Not over the trivial things that most do, like a failed test or a missing wallet. He'd panicked when he thought Tamaki was actually going to leave with Tonnere, and though he kept it a secret to himself, he'd panicked when he realized that Tamaki and Haruhi had both fallen from at least fifty feet in the air into the ocean.

(That is, that time they were on the beach and Haruhi faced the thugs. He wasn't around when they fell from the carriages, and honestly, when he'd been told what happened, he just accepted it because that sounded exactly like the type of dramatic thing to happen in a dire situation involving Tamaki Suoh.)

Now, though, Kyoya is panicking. This is the leg that had just been removed from the table. Or, rather, a rope that was hanging them over a canyon.

A quick look at the numbers would tell _anyone_ that without DomenMed, the next year was looking at a revenue drop in the _millions._ It might not sound serious if you were unwealthy enough to consider any number larger than fifty to be big. What was the difference between 1,500 and 1,000? Both were a huge bag of money in the pocket.

The difference was monumental, in fact. That is the word Yoshio uses to describe it.

"Ceasing pay raises and issuing winter bonuses are going to be the least of our troubles." Yoshio looked as neat and tight as ever, and an outsider would think him zen. To Kyoya, however, the tiniest hint of nervousness in his father was gigantic. "We're looking at laying off hundreds."

Yuuichi sits beside him—fitting, as he's so close to the head, but not quite there. He was like many, many others: when he'd heard the news, he'd dismissed it. It took Yoshio himself calling to say it was truly happening for him to hop on the first plane back from his business trip out of the country. He had the same tiny yet huge hint of nervousness as his father. "There is absolutely no changing his mind?"

"No, Yuuichi," Yoshio snaps. "There is no bargaining anymore."

Kyoya sits further down from Yoshio, Yuuichi, _and_ Akito. He's not even "officially" part of the company, so he sits among the non-Ootori attendees of the emergency meeting. It never even crosses his mind to be offended. He'd crunched numbers in his head the second he'd heard the news, and the realization of how disastrous this was going to be hit him like a freight train.

Kyoya knows everyone in the room, but in his mental state, they all blend together into one unimportant shape. Whoever it is, one asks, "What about Yamamoto Health? Haven't we integrated them now?"

"A single coin won't fill a bank," Yoshio scoffs. "There isn't a replacement to be made."

"Father, please." Akito placed a hand on the table, pressing it down. Unlike both of his brothers, Akito had no issue referring to him as 'Father', not 'Mr. Ootori.' "Let me try and talk to him."

Yoshio presses his fingers to his brow and heaves a sigh. "I'm telling you, there's no point. But if you want to try it, go ahead."

One of the other insignificant blobs asks, "Has an official statement been made to the public?"

"No, and if I see a single leak before one _is,_ I'll know that someone here is to blame."

On and on it goes, just…a spiral. Every question and suggestion is shot down, doing nothing but proving how much more hopeless this is. As if the entire point of the meeting was just so they could all wallow in their own self-pity.

The situation is setting itself up to be a crumbling tower. Just being involved with Ootori Medical doesn't make you a millionaire. There were a lot of workers who depended on their employment to feed their families and put a roof over their heads, and they were going to have to be let go. Once it was made public, there would be no doubt that others who had their stake in the business would abandon ship, only furthering the blow.

Hundreds unemployed, and the number would only grow. People would no doubt question the Ootori name. After all, how could they have let such an important connection fall apart?

Kyoya doesn't ignore the rest of the meeting, but he spends it in his head, crunching numbers and trying to estimate the fallout. Unlike his brothers, who hopelessly continue to plea their defenses, he keeps quiet and takes everything in.

He tries to recall what the final straw could have been, but he comes up short. The last time they'd gone toe-to-toe, it was for the tiniest of disagreements: whether or not to use red or blue for the _redesigned logo for DomenMed._ Either the breaking point was made in private, or there had been an abrupt change of heart.

He wondered, for just a second, if his refused courtship of a certain Amaya Domen played a part in this… _but no, that couldn't be_. Daisuke Domen knew just as well as the rest of them that Kyoya was never going to fall head-over-heels for his daughter, a fact he'd never tried to deny.

Whatever the reason…This is bad.

This is very, very bad.

By the meeting's end, they have only settled three things: Akito and Yuuichi will personally speak to Daisuke Domen in a last-ditch effort to appeal, there will be no talk to anyone even remotely tied to the media, and they all needed to prepare for the worst hailstorm of their lives.

The men and women flit out one by one, some looking grim, others nervous, until it is nothing but the Ootori father and his sons remaining. Kyoya shouldn't feel like an outsider. He does anyway.

"We're still meeting at two today," Yoshio tells Yuuichi. To Akito, he says, "Head back to the hospital. Keep everything functioning as always."

Yuuichi and Akito both nod grimly, and after a few more instructions, both leave the room. Kyoya pushes his chair up to his table. The meeting room was not built for two people. Halfway down the table, Kyoya feels like his father stands miles away from him. Yoshio takes off his glasses, inspecting the lenses, and puts them back on. It is his version of rubbing at his eyes.

"You said a projection hasn't been made yet," Kyoya says. It isn't a question, because Yoshio hates questions that begin with "didn't you say" with a burning passion.

Yoshio's eyes go to him sharply, narrowing just so. "I did."

"I can do that. I already know the average income DomenMed provides Ootori Medical annually. I can attempt to propose a budget as well, in the event of a worst case scenario, but I will need time to—"

"Kyoya."

Yoshio's eyes have narrowed even more now, and under his mustache, his lip has started to curl just so. It could have been mistaken for a look of disgust, but that would not make sense. Kyoya just can't tell what it _is_ a look of.

His father stares at him a few moments longer before turning his gaze to his cufflinks, which he straightens with stiff fingers.

"Go home for the rest of the day, Kyoya."

He's startled. "Father?"

"Go. Home."

 _I overstepped my bounds,_ he frets. He couldn't seem overeager in the face of this. Above all, though, the agreement he'd made with his father was to do anything and everything he was told. So Kyoya goes home.

* * *

He makes the budget anyway, in private. It is not perfect, made with more speed in mind than accuracy, but it will work as a rough draft for now. Not that Kyoya intends to show it to anyone else, he just needed to confirm a fact:

This was going to be very, very, very bad.

Kyoya does not sleep that night. It is going to be that bad.

When he was much younger, Kyoya shared something in common with Haruhi: he'd been terrified of thunderstorms. He'd gotten over it rather quickly, and though he couldn't speak on Haruhi's behalf, it was more a matter of the noise for him. He could not _stand_ that painful tingling that took over his body when he flinched in fear at claps of thunder or popping balloons or whatever else. Every thunderstorm that came, he'd go to the innermost room of the house, determined to muffle the sound through the walls.

A thunderstorm is coming, certainly. A nasty one where there are no rumbles of rolls of thunder, only sharp cracks that stab into the ears, and surges that will kill. It will be painful for everyone involved.

And Kyoya, uninvolved in the business as he is, cannot do anything about it.

He'd never felt entitled to all of Ootori Medical's tribulations before. Envious though he was to watch his brothers work alongside his father, he couldn't know everything through his investigations—he'd be missing important information, so what good could he serve?

But now Kyoya is there, practically an employee, and yet he is still an apprentice at most. While his brothers and father are working tirelessly to save the business from certain doom, Kyoya sits at home among his mountains of paper, useless. He'd always been the youngest son. He'd never felt like the _baby_ until now.

He _tries_ to sleep. He takes a sleeping pill, walks around his room, counts backwards from one hundred. He just can't.

* * *

As soon as the first headline prints— _DOMENMED TO SEPARATE FROM OOTORI MEDICAL—_ the storm begins.

From miles away, Kyoya can hear the chaos breaking out at Ootori Hospital. His father didn't come home last night, nor did he return at all the next day. He, Yuuichi, and Akito are impossible to contact, not that he even dreamed of doing so.

Everyone would keep at their jobs, keep assisting their patients and keep business running, but no doubt even the most high-positioned employees are wondering how long they'll last. To say nothing of those who had high investments in the company and now needed _some_ sign of reassurance.

There is anger and fear and panic spreading out from his family name, and Kyoya just sits at home.

He's been ordered to stay put the next day, too. Even if Yuuichi and Akito hadn't gone on the last mission to win Daisuke's favor, Yoshio might have had some clairvoyance to know that the news would break to the public just the day after it did to them.

It was foolish, really, not to let Kyoya help somehow. Had he not already proven himself knowledgeable in the ways of damage control? But no. Yoshio has him home and out of the way like a troublesome child.

Kyoya refuses to be useless, however. At home, he fine-tunes his projection from the night before. He keeps an eye on what the press has to say—he already has one case of blatant misinformation to report. "Unsatisfactory performance" was _not_ what Daisuke Domen had said about his reason for leaving. What he _had_ said was that he and Yoshio Ootori could not come to an agreement about the future of DomenMed with Ootori Medical, specifically in regards to collaboration and distribution to retailers.

More than anything, Kyoya has to ignore the constant ringing of his phone.

**From: Mitsukuni  
** _**2 MISSED CALLS** _ **  
Kyo-chan, is it true? Takashi and I just heard!**

**From: Hikaru  
** _**1 MISSED CALL** _ **  
Heard Mom and Dad talking about DomenMed…is it going to be bad?**

**From: Kaoru  
** _**1 MISSED CALL** _ **  
Just learned about DM. I don't know specifics but a lot of people are upset. Is everything OK?**

And, of course, from the two people he both wants to and cannot stomach seeing right now:

**From: Haruhi  
** _**3 MISSED CALLS** _ **  
You know I don't know a lot about business stuff but I just heard about that medical group pulling out from Ootori Med.  
Tamaki says they're really important to you guys.  
Is everything okay?  
I'm seeing a lot of stuff on the internet about it.  
I can't tell if people are freaking out or just talking about what's happening…  
Can you text me back?  
Do you need help?**

**From: Tamaki  
** _**52 MISSED CALLS** _

**Kyoya please pick up my calls  
I know that what's going on is bad  
Please let me know if I can help  
Kyoya please pick up  
Dad says a lot of people are angry.  
I'm really worried about you. Please pick up.**

Kyoya eventually stuffs his phone under his pillow just to stifle the sound. He needs to focus. Three times one of the house staff comes to offer him food: first breakfast, then lunch, then tea. He shuts it all down, because somehow all this has destroyed his appetite. He feels both wide awake and incredibly exhausted. He isn't a messy person by nature, but his desk becomes a hellscape of paper and manila folders.

He has to use this time to _think,_ not whine to his friends about how hard everything is.

_Complaining isn't going to get work done. Work gets work done._

That said, his resolve _almost_ breaks when another housekeeper enters his room, looking equal parts fearful and apologetic, and says, "Mr. Tamaki is here. He says he wants to see you."

The knowledge that Tamaki is _there,_ maybe as close as the _living room,_ makes Kyoya pause. It is so tempting in the worst way to just go out there, or let Tamaki come to his room. Tamaki would not be bouncing off the walls wailing of what they were going to do. Kyoya had gotten used to Tamaki's pattern of reacting to situations of varying seriousness, not that he'd be able to tell anyone.

No, Tamaki would have come in with a concerned frown and a steady voice, and probably the first thing he would ask is if Kyoya's okay, and then clarification for what's going on. They'd talk about what was happening and what was _going_ to happen, and maybe Tamaki would know that Kyoya did not want to talk about himself, so he'd find a way to talk about the situation while also somehow focusing on Kyoya. Everything he'd say would have the undercurrent of _"And what about you, Kyoya? How does that affect you?"_

He couldn't recall ever seeking Tamaki out for guidance. Rather, the blonde prince tended to come to him unasked and bestow his surprising wisdom without prompt.

And maybe he still can't seek Tamaki out—because what could Tamaki possible tell him that he didn't already know?—but it would be so terribly nice just to have him here. To let him talk and listen, to somehow comfort him and make him forget what was happening all at once. He was amazing like that, Tamaki Suoh.

He wants to say that it's his pragmatic, cynical side that has him answer, "Tell him I said I don't wish to see him. Very kindly ask him to leave." Because Tamaki can't distract him, and again, he has no time to wallow in grief while there's still work to do.

In truth, however, he knows that it's the same story it has been for months now. It doesn't matter how happy or peaceful the occasion, being with Tamaki or Haruhi just stings a little now, in a way that can't be helped. In the position he's in right now, that little sting might just break him.

* * *

**From: Haruhi  
** _**2 MISSED CALLS  
** _ **Tamaki told me about coming to see you today.  
And that you aren't responding to his messages  
I'm not chiding you or anything.  
I don't know if I'd want to see anyone myself.  
Or if I'd want to read 38 messages asking if I'm okay.  
I understand if you want to be left alone.  
You don't even have to respond to this.  
But if you decide you don't want to talk to anyone right now…  
Please just ask yourself why  
and please don't answer that it's about work or focus or anything like that  
You can go through this without isolating yourself.  
If you want to see someone please go see them.  
Don't shut yourself off.  
I won't call anymore.  
I don't think you want me to.  
That's fine.  
But I'm going to keep my phone on me.  
Just in case you want to call instead.**

* * *

In the weeks that go by after, things only get worse.

Yoshio is forced to make an official statement about DomenMed's departure. It is of the managerial reassurance variety, with statements like "doing everything we can" and "no need to panic." People ignore both, whispering behind their hands about how Ootori Medical is about to crash and burn. Already there has been a spike in employees going above and beyond duties in a helpless attempt to make themselves harder to replace.

Kyoya returns to work with no fanfare. He gives the projection to his father, who neither thanks him nor scolds him for it. He just takes it and walks away without a word. Somehow the days go faster, even if they stretch for over ten hours, because everything melts together into a repetitive mess. Employees hush as he approaches, no one seeks him out for questions, and even when he has to work directly with someone, eye contact is never maintained.

For now, they hang on the thread that is Yoshio's diplomacy skills. Through some way or another, he has managed to sway many from jumping ship, promising that he will—one way or another—figure out just what to do. Kyoya hopes that he figures it out soon. He doesn't know how much of this he can take, because he's already getting hot in the face at the most innocent interruptions.

Kyoya goes a very, very long stretch without talking or seeing anyone. For the twins and the 'Zukas, their messages are a slow trickle. They ask if he's okay, but they know it's unlikely he'll respond. Haruhi and Tamaki talk more consistently to him. For Tamaki, his messages and voicemails are hardly anything besides begging him to talk or let them meet up some way or another. For Haruhi, her messages are open hands disguised as updates. She'll say "Tamaki and I are going to visit my friend in Karuizawa", but what she means is "Hey, I'm still here whenever you decide to talk to me."

That Kyoya is starting to get annoyed with simple sympathy is a warning sign that he does not miss. It just makes him _more_ put off by the idea of responding. He doesn't want to risk snapping at them for no reason, or just because they tried to help. He wants to say he can control his temper then that, but his temper hasn't been tested so far before.

There is one thing that is stressing Kyoya in an entirely different way. It comes with confusion and concern, and when his mind finally goes to it from the situation at hand, it's a very abrupt change in pace.

Jin Ootori has been completely silent on this whole matter.

No official statements, no interviews, no anything. All that Yoshio has said in regards to his wife is that she, too, is focused on getting the situation under control. That's it.

Jin has not called Kyoya or Fuyumi since she left, which was over a month ago by this point. They have heard nothing of her on a personal or business level.

It was true that the Ootoris were not the most tightly-knit bunch, certainly not the sunshine-and-happiness family you'd see on television, but Kyoya wasn't cold-hearted enough to pretend that he was not concerned about his mother.

Fuyumi took a lot from her mother, maybe even too much. Take Jin's emotionality and maternal care, multiply it by a hundred, and you get Fuyumi. Jin was an elegant woman, so much so that even in those moments of touched tears and fretting over her children, she never had a hair out of place. Given, the last time she'd outright doted on any of her children was probably years ago. Probably Kyoya had gotten a high fever and she'd come to his room to see if he was okay. Something normal, as one last farewell before he went on to adulthood.

Since the family has drifted about in their own united but independent directions, Kyoya's interactions with his mother have been sparser. The last time they had actually sat down to talk was rushed for work and nothing particularly meaningful, just a "how have things been" talk.

Still…Kyoya thinks of his mother's young laughter and reassuring pats on the shoulder and can't help but worry after her.

He takes it on himself to call her. Besides taking care of basic human necessities, it's probably the only break he has allowed himself. At eleven o'clock at night—which was very late, but Jin had never shown care for when she called her children or vice-versa—Kyoya holds his phone to his ear, listening to the ring.

A robotic, feminine voice answers, _"I'm sorry, the person you are attempting to call could not be reached at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep."_

In the half of a second before that beep, Kyoya is hit with a spike of concern and disappointment. Then he realizes that maybe it really is just too late in the day this time, and the beep sounds off so it's time to leave a message.

"Hello, Mother. It's Kyoya. I know you've been busy, but it's been a while since we've talked. Just—call me back whenever you can so I know everything's alright. Goodbye."

That's all to be said, and after he hangs up, he regrets just how robotic he sounded.

* * *

The next morning, just two minutes into his daily wake-up routine, one of the staff comes to his door once again. Her apron is the only thing that piques his interest. He's unsure about why one of the kitchen staff would be coming to his room this early.

"I'm sorry, Master Kyoya. It's Missus Shido, she's…in the kitchen."

"In the kitchen" almost turns out to be too literal a phrase, because Fuyumi is in such a helpless heap on the kitchen floor that she seems almost like she's melting into it. It's already a rare sight to see her without any styled hair or designer clothing, so Kyoya is very, _very_ disturbed to see her hair pulled back in a rat's nest of a bun and dressed in just shorts and a sweatshirt. Pajamas. Fuyumi never walked out of her bedroom in pajamas.

"She arrived late last night," one of the chefs told Kyoya as he approached. "We don't know when she got _here."_

Kyoya has no choice but to kneel down over his older sister and ask, "Fuyumi, what's going on?"

"Wanted t' may tea…" comes the slurred response. "Wanted t' may tea beeforya woke-ah."

Though he is certainly not the strongest man on the earth—his strength was fairly meager in comparison to the 'Zukas, for instance—Kyoya at least has the ability to put one arm under Fuyumi's legs, the other under her back, and lifts her up from the floor.

"Nooooo," she protests. You'd think she's only five, and not nearing thirty.

"Yes," answers Kyoya.

But then Fuyumi starts to wriggle and squirm, and not wanting to drop her on the floor, Kyoya re-routes for the dining room and sets her down in one of the chairs. It's not graceful, and her legs end up over the armrest, but it's better than laying around in a heap.

Fuyumi still whines as Kyoya takes a seat beside her. Breakfast has already been set out for him—croque madame, sliced fruit, freshly-squeezed orange juice—and though his starved body growls, Kyoya first takes up his coffee cup and slides it over to his sister. He always gets it as caffeinated as can safely be, which is exactly what she needs right now.

She doesn't protest, and though he worries that she'll end up spilling scalding hot coffee in her sleep-limp grasp, she manages to take a sip. It's enough to perk her up. Not to move from dangling her legs over the arm rest, but enough to not look one blink away from going back under.

"I wanted to make you tea before you woke up," she told him. "I brought the lavender kind you like."

"As thoughtful as that is, you shouldn't do that while you're sleepwalking." Kyoya slides over the sugar and creamer to her. He knows she never takes her coffee black. "What are you doing here?"

"I was going to come sooner. Everything's been so crazy. Tetsu and I have hardly seen each other for days."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I'm here to make sure you're okay, Kyoya!" She answers like it's the most obvious answer in the world, which, alright, fair enough, it is. "I know you were going to throw yourself into work the second I heard what was happening."

"As opposed to anyone else?"

"I love you, Kyoya, but you know you take this stuff much more personally." Fuyumi swirls sugar into her coffee, the spoon clinking on the sides of the cup. She looks sadder, suddenly. "Besides, between you, Akito, and Yuuichi, you're the only one that doesn't get angry when I visit."

In all fairness, Kyoya knows she isn't talking about now, specifically. Fuyumi has always come unannounced unless she had a reason to call ahead of time. She liked to surprise her family. It's always been an annoyance, sure, but mostly harmless. Kyoya understood she just wanted to talk and visit; her intent was never to cause trouble. While Kyoya has always taken on her impromptu arrivals with reluctance at most, Akito and Yuuichi are not so forgiving. From what Fuyumi tells, they rush through the visits, and their way of saying goodbye was a stern warning to call ahead the next time.

Now, though, he can't help but feel that Akito and Yuuichi would be very justified in their annoyance. It's not the time for chitchatting over tea. He isn't exactly jubilant to see Fuyumi unannounced, but then again, she isn't really interfering with work.

Perhaps he's being too bitter. Kyoya does love his sister, bad communication aside.

He tells her, "If you want to see Akito or Yuuichi, you probably won't be able to for a while now."

"I know. It just feels like every time something happens in the family, everyone forgets that I'm a part of it, too. 'You should've called, Fuyumi.' 'I don't have time, Fuyumi.'"

Then Kyoya feels guilty for ever being annoyed in the first place. With a little huff, he takes off half of his croque madame, puts it on his coffee saucer, and slides it to her. She offers a tiny smile in thanks.

It isn't often that Kyoya is the first to try and keep a conversation going. These are confusing times. "I tried to call Mother last night. She didn't pick up."

Fuyumi swallows, pauses, and replies, "She hasn't answered my calls for weeks now. Do you think something is wrong?"

"Maybe she knew what was happening. She's always been on friendlier terms with the Domens than the rest of us."

"Still…It isn't like her to leave us high and dry like this."

"I'm sure she's fine. Probably just very, very busy."

"Just like everyone else." Her voice still carries some of that acknowledged bitterness to it. Upset that she's being left behind, but understanding that things are very stressful at the moment. "Maybe we should go visit ourselves."

She doesn't mean it. It's too poor of an idea for her to be sincere. When Kyoya doesn't say anything in reply, she doesn't push it.

There are voices from down the hall, and it seems that they both write it off as the kitchen staff talking at first. Then another voice is added to it, deep and familiar. They both freeze.

Suddenly, Fuyumi's limbs have turned into windmills, flapping and flailing about in her scramble to get out of her chair. "I didn't tell him I was coming!"

Kyoya grabs her coffee before she ends up knocking it over. "Can't you just say you're visiting?"

"Not _now!"_ Footsteps start nearing the dining room, alarming she and he both. "Don't tell him!"

Kyoya thinks that she's about to run to the kitchen, or through the door or—no. Behind the window curtains it is.

He just hardly manages to get the half-eaten croque madame back to his plate when Yoshio comes in. He looks sharp for a man who has gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep. His alertness isn't top-notch, however. When his eyes land on Kyoya, he blinks.

"I would've thought you'd been gone by now."

"I'm leaving in just a minute." He might not have meant it as a scolding, but Kyoya takes it as one anyway.

Yoshio does not immediately walk off. Not wanting to give away anything, Kyoya takes a sip of coffee to keep up a look of normalcy and _eugh_ does Fuyumi take her coffee like syrup.

His father steps closer rather than further away. Kyoya doesn't stand (that would be awkward, he thinks), but he turns his chair to better face him. Yoshio folds his arms over the front of his suit, looking down at his son silently for a long moment. He must have come home to refresh. Kyoya can see the slight grease to his hair.

"Amaya Domen." One of Yoshio's fingers tap against his elbow. "What is it about her you don't like?"

Kyoya blinks, chides himself for it, and blinks again. "I'm sorry?"

"I already have a pretty good idea, but tell me." Yoshio's gaze flicks up to the ceiling in what is almost an eyeroll. "Don't bother minding your manners. I don't intend on telling anyone what you say."

The thought that perhaps this _is_ coming from his rebuttal of Amaya's affections pops into his head once again, and once again, it leaves just as quickly. Would Yoshio not have pushed him into accepting an engagement if that were the case?

 _Why else would he be asking?_ Kyoya thinks.

He _has_ asked, though, and he's awaiting some kind of answer.

"Amaya is intelligent—" Three words, and Yoshio's stare is already flatter. He hadn't been kidding about not minding manners. "—but to be frank, she's also very immature. She essentially ignored me in all our meetings, but when I told Mr. Domen I didn't have any romantic feelings for her, she took it as an insult. I seriously doubt her attempts to set up another date between us was out of a sincere desire to see me again. I think she was just trying to win."

It isn't hard to keep bitterness from coming through his voice, because really, he's not bitter. He's _tired._ That first "date" between them, the "Hey I have a son around the same age as your daughter—let's see if they want to be together" date, Amaya refused to look at him as he spoke, didn't ask after him, and answered in clipped one-word answers to his questions. Same for the next few dates, so she should've been happy when Kyoya finally shut it down. Instead, she insisted on trying again, and their last meeting was around an hour of her sneer-smiling at him, trying to figure out why he wasn't tripping over his feet to impress her.

Even if he didn't already have his heart taken elsewhere, Kyoya could never see himself feeling anything romantic for Amaya Domen. He's not warm and welcoming, himself, but he doesn't get enraged when he does not get fawned over.

"Immature." Yoshio says it in agreement, then turns while tightening his tie. "I'm going to freshen up. Get to work soon."

So if there was a reason for bringing up Amaya Domen, Kyoya doesn't get it. He watches Yoshio walk off down the hall.

Then he takes one step back, cranes his neck around the entryway, and calls, "You need to call when you come to visit, Fuyumi."

From the vaguely humanoid lump in the curtains, his almost-thirty sister whines in response.

* * *

To: Haruhi Fujioka

Hello.

**From: Haruhi Fujioka**

**Hey  
Happy you're finally reaching out.**   
**Everyone is worried**

I've been busy. I haven't had time to talk.

**I know. I understand.  
Still  
Maybe just say you're okay and leave it at that.**

Tamaki has been calling me nonstop.  
He won't settle for one text.

**He would.  
He understands that this is very serious.  
You should give him more credit than that.**

I'll text him soon.

**Can you please just tell me what's going on?  
I kind of know what's going on  
but I'd like to hear it from you.**

The connection between DomenMed and Ootori  
Medical has been very critical for years now.  
Annual revenue from their products is in the  
millions.  
We were in a conditional partnership, and  
Daisuke Domen has officially cut it off.  
If we cannot find a sufficient means of  
compensating for the loss, we're looking at  
hundreds of employees losing their jobs.

**Is there nothing that can be done?**

We're exploring options.  
But it doesn't look good.

**That's horrible  
I'm so sorry.  
I can't imagine dealing with that.**

I'm sorry for not keeping in contact.

**No, it's okay.  
Like I said, I understand.  
Sometimes you'd rather deal with stuff alone  
even though everyone says that's wrong.  
I don't blame you for not having time.  
But like I said just let us know you're okay.**

It wasn't my intent to be mean.  
There just isn't any advice that's going to help.  
Talking about how horrible things are won't  
get anything done.  
I need to work.  
Not complain.

**Maybe this is just me, but when I'm in a situation  
where no one can really "help" me…  
It still means a lot just to know they're thinking about me  
I didn't always think that, you know.  
I used to think I had to deal with everything myself.  
After I joined the Host Club, you guys showed me that  
wasn't true.  
Just a little support goes a long way.**

I'm sorry, but it's not the same.  
This isn't a personal issue that good wishes can help.  
The entire company is in danger.  
People will lose their jobs, we'll have to cut corners.  
It's only going to get worse.  
A pat on the shoulder won't fix that.

**Alright.  
I'm sorry.  
I guess this is exactly what you didn't want.  
Just don't push yourself to the breaking point.  
I know you.  
You've always gone above and beyond even before  
this.  
Do what you think you need to do.  
But please don't act like you're expendable.**

[DELETED MESSAGE]  
[DELETED MESSAGE]  
I'll talk to Tamaki soon.

* * *

The next weeks are nothing short of a nightmare.

From dawn until dusk, every day of work pushes Kyoya to his very limits. It could be that nothing much has changed, but the disconnection of DomenMed has rattled the company from top to bottom.

No one is especially acting like their true selves, not even Kyoya. He's always been mindful of upkeeping a professional but welcoming image—the better he looked, the better the Ootoris looked. Now, he doesn't have the strength to keep up a smile, or indulge in chitchat. He's snappy and curt and he thinks he has a reason to be.

Before, interactions depended on who he was with. Higher-ups were normal enough, knowing he was the youngest Ootori son but not with much power, least of all over them. Those lower on the ladder were much more prone to kissing up and ducking their heads.

He would prefer that to _this._ The higher-ups were terser now, annoyed, and more than one had sent a dirty look his way. "Lower-downs" weren't above fleeing from him or shaking in their boots as he approached. As if he would fire them just for looking his way.

They were in the process of considering who would have to be let go in the worst-case scenario. The most menial jobs would be hit hardest. Other positions were looking to be merged together.

So far no one has been _officially_ fired in light of DomenMed's departure. Kyoya is worried for those whose behavior and performance has been affected, however. One day an employee neglects to inform them of the Ootori Hospital's disposable glove supply slipping below the critical line. His defense was that he thought he'd be able to take care of it. It was very terribly ironic: in his attempt to prove himself valuable, his mistake cost him his job.

Kyoya is lucky not to have to worry about any social events—everyone understands why the Ootoris cannot be present at their galas and weddings and such. On top of giving himself more time to work, it makes it easier to avoid those that he knows are seeking him out.

Not that there aren't other things to take up time, or difficulty in avoiding others. He is still attending college. There's no way around that. Kyoya does not have to worry about getting behind on his classwork or letting his average slip. He'll always be perfect in those regards. But he still has to _be_ in class, and every hour chips away at time he could be spending helping at the company.

He has managed, not intentionally, to get a semester schedule wherein he shares no classes with any of the others. Still, he can still spot glimpses of Tamaki and the twins in the hallways. He always beelines to leave immediately after class ends—sometimes he has things scheduled at the _exact time_ class dismisses for the day, a no-win scenario—but he wouldn't be surprised if he was spotted at least once.

Despite the situation at hand, he somehow manages to spend the least amount of time with his family than he ever has before. He hasn't seen Akito or Yuuichi in weeks now. He's lucky to talk to his father for more than five minutes a day. Fuyumi is back home, apparently keeping out of the way, and Kyoya is surprised to run into Tetsu at work one day. It wasn't much, they really did just meet by happenstance, but he knew Tetsu regretted not being able to talk longer. Kyoya actually quite liked his brother-in-law. He just wished he could see him more.

As for everyone else, Kyoya is on radio silence.

Hani and the twins' messages and calls trickle to a stop. Haruhi limits herself to at most two messages a day, and Tamaki remains persistent. Kyoya does as promised and sends him a message saying he's fine, but that one message has his phone vibrating for an hour afterwards. Just as he predicted.

He is…not proud of his current state. Leaving those who care about him worried because he can't find the time of day to talk. Ignoring basic needs like food and rest. Trying to get his determination to save his family's business and protect the jobs of many to squash that still-persistent part of him just trying to get his father's approval.

He really just wished his mind and heart would have some kind of instinctual bodily defense against this. Wouldn't it be nice, to work like a computer? To make more room for work and school, simply delete all the confusing feelings you have about your friends to release storage. Simple as that.

Sometimes, in the moments where he was all but forcing himself to try and get some sleep, he thought back to days when all he had to worry about was ordering costumes for the Host Club, or scheduling their events for the semester. They feel as childish as his primary school days now.

There also used to be days when he _wasn't_ in love with Tamaki Suoh and Haruhi Fujioka. At least back then he didn't have to deal with jealousy and heartbreak and longing and all the other stupid, unnecessary feelings turning his body into a self-contained warzone.

In truth, however, Kyoya knows he would never want to go _back_ to those days. To not be in love with them would mean never knowing them in the first place, and Kyoya is self-aware enough to know that they have both changed him for the better.

* * *

Day-by-day life as he knows it comes crashing down with one meeting with his father.

It's been a little over a month and a half now. Adjustments are being made. Some employees have been let go.

Yoshio has _almost_ been ignoring him for weeks now. If they talked, it was only about business, and DomenMed was always an elephant in the room. They _pointedly_ did not talk about it. In terms of instruction and news, all of Yoshio's messages were indirect, either through email, phone, or someone sent his way.

Kyoya had been desperately awaiting the moment when Yoshio would finally open the door and usher him in to help, however minimally as he could. With every day that passed, he felt more and more like a child waiting for the grownups to get done with their meeting. When he was finally summoned to Yoshio's office, he was relieved in a terrible way.

The relief didn't last too long.

Yoshio's office was modest for a man of his importance. It was wide, yes, but the only furniture within were the desk, a coffee table, and seats. Focus was more on the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the skyline of Tokyo. Yoshio's office was about as neat and tidy as he was.

His father is sitting behind his desk with his elbows on the surface and his fingers interlaced just under his chin. He is ever-so-slightly leaning forward. As soon as Kyoya shuts the door behind him, Yoshio tells him, "Sit."

He does, across from him on the other side of the desk. It isn't his first time there.

Yoshio takes a moment to speak. "What all do you have scheduled for the rest of the day?"

"Other than the meeting at two, I'm going to look over the proposed schedule for the CPR classes, and the hospital cafeteria is having a machinery issue. I was also—"

Yoshio holds up a hand. "That'll all be taken care of."

Either he was about to be involved in something of higher importance and necessitating more time…or Kyoya was about to be sent home again. He braced himself.

His father inspects his lenses. Considering his words. With a miniscule roll of his shoulders, he asks, "How familiar are you with Amida Health?"

Not as familiar as he is with other medical companies, being one based overseas, but Kyoya keeps himself informed on nearly everything. Two generations ago, Takeo Amida (if he recalled the name correctly) went from Japan to America, where his advancements in the technology field of health boomed into a business found in nearly every American hospital. It wasn't household like DomenMed. Amida Health's technology was based more in hospital equipment and machinery, which was just as profitable.

As of recent, their products have spread to smaller-scale but equally successful ideas. Prosthetics, CGMs, and more over-the-counter things like thermometers and pregnancy tests. Only a few have been available to buy as of recent. In terms of business with Japan, Amida Health equipment was found in many hospitals and clinics throughout the country. Just not those under Ootori Medical, who created their own equipment.

He summarizes all of this to Yoshio, who gives a single nod of confirmation. "Shigeo Amida and I have been discussing a possible merger between Ootori Medical and Amida Health."

That…is actually fantastic.

Kyoya will have to crunch numbers, of course. It might not completely cover the loss of DomenMed, but it will do _wonders_ for the state of the company.

He can't sigh in relief just yet, though. It is only a possibility, it seems. There's also something rather grim about Yoshio at the moment.

"If this happens," Yoshio says, "It could very well save us from what we've been fearing would happen in the next year. It won't be perfect. We will have to cut people still. But for the good of our business and everyone involved, it's an opportunity we need to keep a grasp on. Do you agree?"

"Of course."

Another pause.

"This is a situation that I never expected to be in. I will admit to not doing more to ensure safety."

Kyoya is unable to catch himself in time. Yoshio quirks up an eyebrow at him. "What's that look for?"

He thinks about coming up with a demure lie to save face, but thinks against it. His father's perception to lies is likely sky-high at the moment. "I can't help but feel you're about to share some bad news."

Yoshio blinks, taps his thumb on his joined hands, and leans back in his chair with a slight creak. In a very, _very_ rare show of blatant exhaustion, Yoshio runs his hand over his mouth and goatee. He doesn't deflate, not completely. If anything, he's having the very human experience of giving himself a moment to bask in the awfulness of the situation.

"Has something else happened?" offers Kyoya.

"No."

"Then what's the problem?"

"There is quite a lot that's 'the problem' right now," Yoshio not-quite snaps. He tries to compose himself, but only manages to straighten his posture again. "I'm not proud of this, Kyoya."

It's then that Kyoya decides there really isn't any reason in trying to play the complying son with a ducked head anymore. No response is a good response, there are just neutral and worse. "I know."

"You don't know. I should be able to solve this by myself, not by pleading for assistance from another business. At the very least, I should have been able to stop this from ever happening in the first place."

"You told me once that there would be times when you'd need to seek help from the outside."

"Not from your children."

Pride, he himself had said, but not the kind Kyoya had initially thought. He knew his father identified himself with Ootori Medical first and foremost. To say that having what could be the worst financial loss in the company's history happen under his management struck Yoshio hard would be a woeful understatement. Kyoya must have forgotten that just because they were part of the business now, it did not mean Akito and Yuuichi had stopped being Yoshio's sons. Had Yoshio felt humiliated when they offered their help in swaying Daisuke Domen back over? When Kyoya had given him his projections, was that the biggest insult a son could manage?

Actually…That just reminded Kyoya that his father has always had two forms of pride. He had hit both hard when he'd saved the company from the Tonneres. Judging by the brief narrowing of Yoshio's eyes at him, he was also reminded.

His father's next words were clipped. "I don't like saying this, but everyone in this family needs each other." _Except me,_ Kyoya thought childishly. "Akito and Yuuichi have proven themselves to be vital in the structure of Ootori Medical. True, Fuyumi may not be involved, but Tetsu is."

He let those words hang in the air for a moment. After, he said nothing, but Kyoya knew the command: _Ask the question. Ask, 'What about me?'_ He saw it clear behind Yoshio's glasses.

"What about Mother?"

Even Kyoya hadn't thought he was going to say that.

Surprise flickers across Yoshio's face. He composes himself, but not as quickly has he usually does, not from one to the other. Kyoya identifies discomfit in the short glance to the side Yoshio makes, and…bitterness.

The questions he'd had about Jin, where she was, _how_ she was, why she wasn't talking to them, they began to swell in the few seconds of silence that followed. Now was no time to ask them. He knew that. He just also knew that this was going to be another thing that would weigh down on his mind.

At long last, Yoshio joins his hands atop the desk again, and continues forth as if Kyoya had said what he'd wanted him to say. "As of now, even you are providing…probably the most monumental help to this family you ever can or will."

He is certainly not talking about the projections.

Whatever he is about to say, it makes Yoshio purse his lips at he prepares himself. This is really, genuinely disgusting him. Kyoya is _almost_ nervous.

"Shigeo Amida's familial situation has been very private for many years now. On top of that, it wasn't something to care about. Do you know _anything_ at all of it?"

His pause comes not from pondering, but from taking in the pointed dismissal of his mother. Kyoya bites the inside of his cheek once before answering, "I know that he was married once, but divorced."

A stiff nod. "As I said, it was nothing to pay mind to. It was the personal life of a stranger I never planned to associate with. Even now, I don't know _all_ the details, certainly not the ones I would most like to know. What I _do_ know is that Mr. Amida's wife was the daughter of the Suzuki family. You've probably never heard of them; their business never went anywhere. After the divorce, Mr. Amida's ex-wife returned to Japan, and she had a child soon after."

On his life, he has no idea what this has to do with anything, but Kyoya nods obediently. There is a possibility that he _has_ heard of the Suzukis, but…well, that's the surname of millions in Japan.

"Mr. Amida's daughter has been raised apart from her father, but recently, _unexpected changes in circumstance_ —" His voice drips with disdain of the words. "—have brought the two together. Mr. Amida never remarried, and he is working with his daughter to set her up to become the heiress of Amida Health."

This—

— _this moment—_

—should have been answer enough.

Kyoya is not stupid. He has never been stupid.

So maybe it was a moment of defensive naivete that kept him from realizing what was happening.

The last thing Yoshio does is tap his thumb one more time, on his knuckle.

"Mr. Amida has agreed to a partnership between our companies on the condition that you marry his daughter."

And suddenly, everything—DomenMed, Ootori Medical, Fuyumi, his mother, Tamaki and Haruhi, college, his future, his family—just fade away into nothing. They will have to be resized and restructured to make room for what his life will be now.


	13. Business Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kosuke meets her fiance.

There isn't a rule on how long someone can be 'in shock', is there? There's no medical limit on it as far as Kosuke knows. She feels like she has been in shock for days now.

She doesn't recall what she did after the police officer informed her that her parents had died in a car accident. It was just a fog of tears and denial and laying helpless on the floor. She'd been in shock for a second when she realized Marti dealt with a loan shark, to a _much_ smaller degree.

Confirming that she was going to marry a complete stranger at the string-pulling of her estranged father had left her in probably the world record for longest state of 'in shock.' If that is even a good way to describe it.

She hadn't told Haruhi any details when she returned, but it seemed that the older woman had just written it off as her not wanting to talk. And Kosuke didn't, not when she hadn't even processed what she'd agreed to. For the rest of that evening, she hadn't shut down per se. She'd talked and responded and kept moving, but she couldn't remember what she'd said or done. She did not sleep that night.

The whole… _thing_ just comes back to her every now and then like it's on a timer. One minute, Kosuke is folding up her laundry and tucking it away into her drawers, thinking about what she'll be making for dinner that night and wondering if she can fix the weird knob on the bathroom cabinet. Then she remembers her _engagement_ and would you look at that, she's spent thirty minutes staring into space.

She hardly realizes anything new that didn't already hit her like a truck when she'd heard it in the first place. Oddly, she seemed to do better thinking about it then than now. Her shock had to build up, apparently.

When she'd talked to Shigeo about it, she'd been hit with a flurry of horrible ideas and images: a wedding, a ring on her finger, sleeping with a stranger in her bed, doing… _not-sleeping_ things with a stranger in her bed. Some left her stupefied, others left her disgusted, and others still had her going to the bathroom and looking at her reflection in the mirror just so she could ask herself, _What the hell happened to your life?_

Now, though, she can't focus on images or scenarios, just the sheer weight of everything. It really did feel like she was shackled to a stone sometimes. It was almost physically painful to walk around with it.

The word _forever,_ however dramatic, kept coming to her head and dealt the worst blows. No one could predict the future, but even so, Kosuke had just signed part of hers away. She'd always thought she'd get married some day, but she thought she'd do it of her own heart and will, because things were normal for her once upon a time and that's usually how people get married.

In the moments where she wasn't shocked, overwhelmed, stupefied, and whatever else, Kosuke had to admit, the whole thing made her…sad.

The night that Kohta and her had broken up, she'd grieved for all their wasted time together and worried that she had ruined future experiences for him. She'd also been so put off by the idea of being with anyone else she forgot what it was ever like to not be with Kohta in the first place.

Over time, though, the wound had healed. Or scarred. Whichever.

She thought that perhaps it wasn't the memory Kohta himself that had yet to stop bleeding. In all honesty, the more she thought about it, the more she questioned whether she was ever really in love with him. Maybe she just _loved_ him, or the other way around. Whatever kind of love it was, Kosuke knows that you're supposed to want to do right by the person you love, want to make them happy and ease their feels. She'd just kept up with her laziness and swept his concerns for their future under the rug, so perhaps it was never love after all.

But she just… _longs_ for someone.

She still remembers what it's like to be in love, or at least be in the unfair and selfish version she'd had with Kohta. She remembered the little sparks of happiness she felt when her eyes landed on him, the thrills when she made him smile and laugh. She remembers what it felt like to look at him and think, _He's mine,_ and when he looked at her, _I'm his._ She remembers that it felt like a bond not made by chains, but by a ribbon that could stretch and bend without breaking.

She remembers what it's like to have someone brush a lock out of her face, or push their nose into her hair to breathe her in. She remembers the soft and warm, yet somehow burning feeling of kissing someone and feeling their hands on her—face, hips, back, wherever—as they held her close.

The really, _really_ pathetic thing is that sometimes when she's alone, she can almost feel a warm hand holding hers, or phantom arms pulling her close, keeping her safe, giving her comfort. It especially hurts when she can't fall asleep because for some reason, her empty bed has made it all too clear how long she's gone without that kind of touch.

It's not like she's been avoided like a leper. She has the kids, who crawl on her like spider monkeys, who play with her hair and tug on her leg and fall asleep in her arms. The Fujiokas have no issue pulling her in for a hug or patting her hand in comfort. Tamaki is Physical Affection Incarnate. He has probably hugged her more times than anyone else in her life.

Even so, it's not the same. Whether she's lonely, or stressed, or just a hopeless romantic, she longs to have that kind of presence to turn to again.

After Kohta's memory had sewn itself up, she'd started thinking about her future in romance. There were some logical factors, like how she'd have to be less busy than she is now to give them proper attention, or how she's now a package deal with two children. On top of that, she had never really thought about her "type" before she'd met Kohta. She'd had crushes on the singers and actors that most teenage girls did, but she found a guy she liked before she ever had to really look.

She's always been hopeful. On more than one occasion, she's had a guy express interest. Sometimes it's the customers who smile at her as she hands them their change, or a stranger who sees her coming and holds the door open for her. It's nice, to have someone look at you and perk up a little. She recognizes interest on a person's face, but she just doesn't have time now. There's no way she can fit a loving relationship into her schedule at this point.

So she'd planned to just pursue romance in the future, and that plan had been slashed out with the permanent marker that was this arranged marriage.

Not only that, her entire life structure was about to be flipped. She couldn't force herself to be happy about a gold lace wardrobe and fine dining and big mansions. Not when she was going to have to spend every waking moment for the rest of her life being aware of people she's never met, attending their funerals and weddings, sitting down for long meals with them, all because your image and connections could make or break you.

It might've been just a little easier if she could put a finality to this, but apparently there was one last, last, last, _last_ step to be taken for this, which was a dinner with the Ootori family. The deal itself was pretty much set by now, but Shigeo had said it was just for propriety. Which is just slap-your-knee hilarious, in Kosuke's opinion.

Part of her wishes she'd never let him in to talk in the first place; another is grateful for it.

Whether or not she hates her father, she cannot decide. She does not trust him, she does not remotely like him, she is filled with fury when she recalls that this whole thing—whether he'd warned her or not!—came down to him using his flesh and blood as business leverage. That Emiko had run from him only fuels her distrust.

He's not her father. He's hardly more than a stranger. He's a figure who came in to offer her a deal that would hurt her but save what she held dear, with him as the one most profited. Shigeo is basically Rumpelstiltskin. And oh, how Kosuke would love to throw him out to the curb, demand he never contact her again, and spit on him while he was down.

Instead, she has to shake his hand, accept him as her father, and play along with him. He and she both know she has no real choice here.

She'd also love to spend _years_ just yelling about everything that has gone wrong in her life and how she feels desperate and how much she hates herself for all of this, but it's not happening.

She can't even force out the words "I am engaged" to her own reflection, she has decided to keep this under wraps until the dinner is over. _Then_ she can drop the atomic bomb on everyone. She knows Haruhi will be appalled, and Tamaki likely infuriated, but it's the children's reactions that has her the most concerned. She doubts there is anything she can say or do to make them understand.

If her parents could see her now, if her _mother_ could be here to see what she was doing to herself and her siblings, Kosuke is positive that though she had never done it in all of her daughter's life, Emiko would have struck her across the face.

Kosuke can keep all her secrets bottled up. It's a struggle, but she manages to go about her day and doing her rituals as if nothing has changed. What she really, truly needs is for someone to tell her that this would not enrage her parents. Or just tell her that even though Emiko and Marti had died unconvinced that Kosuke would never be able to be a caretaker for herself or her siblings, she hadn't proven them horribly, dreadfully right.

No one can tell her that, though. No one but her parents would know, and even if they did, it would be a lie.

* * *

The days leading up to the dinner take a lot of mental exercise on her part. She is all but physically bracing herself for impact.

She figures that considering she's all but guaranteed money for the rest of her life now, she should be forking out a few extra yen to buy a babysitter for the evening. However, the second she brings it up to Haruhi, she's interrupted by the older woman's almost offended insistence that she can take care of it. She has not asked any questions about the night, because Kosuke had promised her all the details she would ever need once it was all over. It only seemed to concern Haruhi more, but she digressed.

Tamaki is not so easy to sway, and is very vocal on how she needs to cut ties with Shigeo as soon as possible, but he loses the battle. He isn't angry, not at her. His eyes are just filled with a little too much pity for her to take. Ranka is no better.

Hitsuji is still too young to know any better, and is just happy to go to another sleepover at Haruhi's. Minami, however, is more than a little upset that she is being deprived specifics.

"It shouldn't be a secret," she tells her as Kosuke is tucking her to bed one night. "Sisters don't keep secrets."

"It's a _temporary_ secret. Like a surprise." _But horrible._ "I'll tell you once it's over."

Minami accepts it, just not happily. She's noticeably pouty for much of the time after.

She has to check everyone off like a bucket list. With them all sated, she can focus on her much-needed preparation for the nightmare that's coming.

This dinner will be most representing of her incoming life than the engagement party could ever hope to be. She is going to have to watch what she says, how she moves, the way she sits, _everything._ She is once again going to have to display that she is not _stupid,_ even though she knows nothing of what anyone is talking about. She had asked Shigeo about whether she should start touching up on her knowledge, but he had only responded that they would get to it. Kosuke thought it'd be wiser to "upgrade" her insight on the company she would apparently inherit, at least to make her look better to Mr. Ootori, but apparently Shigeo isn't going to waste time on it until it's written in ink.

She turns to what she can research herself instead on the internet. She can now confidently say that she knows what Amida Health does and their market value. She herself was surprised to see that the company was based in the United States and not Japan. She had to remember that.

As for her future husband, that is a different ballfield.

Kosuke imagines him as blandly as she can. Polite and nice are her only two expectations personality-wise. He'll probably be smart. He'll certainly be much, much better at the etiquette of bluebloods, having been raised as one since birth. Kosuke _thinks_ his hair will be dark, just judging by his father's. She has tried to imagine Mr. Ootori younger to give her an idea, but it's no use. She can't imagine what he looks like without the gray hair and goatee, and if her fiancé's eyes are as razor-sharp and cold as his father's, she doesn't think she'll ever be able to keep eye contact.

This is the man she is going to be spending the rest of her days with. They will have a wedding and live in the same house. She will belong to him and him to her. Shackled.

The only way she can power through all this is to host just a little smidgeon of optimism. Her hopes of living a marital life of love and affection and passion have all been dashed. She has accepted that. There is no other option.

 _However,_ that doesn't mean she has to _hate_ her husband. She doesn't right now, though it might be easy to. From what Shigeo had said, arranged marriages very rarely had anything to do with the opinions of those involved. He could have as little a choice in this as she did.

She could swallow the planet-sized pill of signing her life away, but she isn't going to be able to power through a hateful marriage. She just isn't, and she doesn't have to. They will not call each other 'honey', or kiss each other's faces, or close any distances as they go to bed for the evening. That doesn't mean they can't have peaceful talks with one another, or be good housemates. Who knows, she might even strike a friendship with her husband.

It's a pathetic compromise, but it's the best she can do. Kosuke has kind of given up on a happily ever after at this point. She probably gave up on it a while ago.

The point is, Minami and Hitsuji will be safe and happy, they will never starve or go cold. The needs of the family outweigh the wants of the daughter.

* * *

Shigeo gives her one last surprise by telling her that she will have her own hotel room for the night. She attempts to protest, saying she already has a place to stay, but he shuts her down. Her makeup and dress fitting will need a place to happen, and that can't really be at a tiny little apartment already packed to the gills. Besides, it will be closer to the venue. That makes sense, at least.

Dropping off the children and getting her last good wishes from the still-concerned Fujiokas is the easy part. Getting on the bus and arriving at the hotel—which is another pinnacle of luxury and wealth, which shouldn't have surprised her—is where she has to put her war paint on.

The hotel room is thankfully not grandiose enough to floor her to the ground, but it is enough to make any other one she's ever stayed in look decrepit in comparison. The far wall is a floor-to-ceiling window of the city, the wallpaper has gold trim, and the whole place is larger than the Fujioka's entire apartment.

Her artist arrives a little after three. It is the same one as before, in clothes just as gaudy and heels just as high.

"Prepare yourself," she warns Kosuke in her odd stilted accent.

Kosuke cracks her neck and takes a breath. "Let's do this."

The process is a little shorter and less painful this time. Her dress is another spectacle that is going to worry her all night long: dark blue satin, floor-length with a slit up to her knee. Simple in comparison to the last one, but just as glamorous. She _will_ have to wear heels, however, white ones that go with a gemstone necklace. The artist keeps her makeup fairly normal—"God didn't make your body for bold tones, it seems."—and pulls her hair back with a salon's worth of bobby pins that disappear into her blonde locks. She is good at her job, Kosuke can't deny that.

Knowing the purpose of this makeover makes her feel much _grosser_ than she did the last time. Back then, it was wariness and confusion that had dominated her thoughts. Now she really does feel like some kind of prize pig being paraded around for auction.

The limousine comes to take her away, but Shigeo is not inside this time. Kosuke is driven into the heart of Tokyo, among all the bustling taxis and towering skyscrapers, before she's dropped off at her destination.

The place is called _Ambrosia,_ and is what she imagines when she think of high-class dining. There's a red canopy over the entrance and a man waiting to open the door for you. The people who pass in are in their bets suits and evening gowns.

Shigeo is waiting outside in a black suit with a blue tie. They almost look like they're matching, and Kosuke bites her tongue as she steps out.

Neither immediately says anything to each other. Kosuke has no clue how she's supposed to greet him at all. She hasn't seem him since she first agreed to this, only minimally communicating over the phone. His eyes, though not glaring, are warning her to not screw this up, propriety or not. Kosuke wishes she could say that she has some kind of power here, but she doesn't. No benefit would come from intentionally throwing this out the window.

She just makes sure to keep her back straight and her chin raised. He will not scare her.

Shigeo finally speaks when she comes closer. "When we go in, you are going to be polite and, if you can pull it off, charming. Just do that without coming off as robotic or ditzy."

She's reminded of her horrifying act at the Blue Tower. "I won't."

"Hopefully Mr. Ootori will understand why you're not up-to-date on all the details, but like I said before, just don't be stupid. If you answer a question right, don't let it get to your head, because if you get the next one wrong, you'll look pompous. If you can't answer a question, just play up how willing you are to learn."

"Don't come off as confident, but try to come off as confident. Understood."

His gaze briefly takes on a withering chill, but it only gives her a little spark in her chest. She supposes she _does_ have some power here after all. She's his only playing card here, and it'll take more than sass to make him cut ties.

Which means she can be as sassy as she wants. Victory.

"Try to talk without being a blabbermouth," he goes on, a little clippier. "Don't focus solely on Kyoya, either. You'll look either desperate or nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

"Sure, and you're not desperate, either." Shigeo almost rolls his eyes before straightening the tie beneath his chin. "Come on, they'll be here soon."

The good thing about only needing to trail behind is that it gives her a few more minutes to brace herself. While Shigeo talks about a reservation, Kosuke is trying to figure out a plan for her fiancé. Not about their meeting—a handshake and a smile will be just fine, she thinks—but the best way to get him to at least _like_ her.

She thinks that a good idea would be to note little facts about him. The better she knows him, the better they can try and get along. So far she has just three.

#1 He is the youngest son of Mr. Ootori

#2 He is around her age.

#3 He is attending Ouran University.

That's it. She will just have to branch out from there.

In the main hall of the place, faceless figures dressed to the nines are mingling around with hors d'oeuvres, but they need not wait. They are led to a room that looks just a touch bit more like a meeting room for business, in Kosuke's opinion, although it does suit the situation better. The long table is sleek and black, lined with candles, the walls designed in an impeccable traditional style of vines and flowers. There is no head seat, only four chairs on either side. Shigeo sits in one and Kosuke sits beside him.

To steel her nerves just a little bit, she pulls her phone out of the clutch the stylist gave her—awfully inconvenient, clutches—and texts Haruhi.

_Doing fine so far. Text me if something's wrong._

Which she already knows, of course, but Kosuke's hands are shaking.

Sadly, for all the times she tells herself "It's all in your head," she's starting to get the same feeling she had when she was heading into her night at the Blue Tower. Her stomach is starting to roil, she has to be mindful not to breathe too hard, her back is starting to hurt from her shivering. No wonder Shigeo could see her nervousness from a mile away.

It's not that she's expecting anything to go wrong, she just has to let the question of what she's doing sink in one last time. She'll probably have to let it sink in a few thousand more times, but yeah…For now.

Theoretically, she could still put her foot down (over and over, out the door) and shut the book on this whole thing and let enough years go by to where she can mark it off as some crazy fever dream. She allows herself that fantasy for just a minute, like she's done before. She's not sitting at a table about to meet her fiancé in an arranged marriage by a scumbag stranger. She's sitting at a table at home, watching the children settle into their seats while her mother and father bring out dishes. She's happy.

Buuuuut then she hears footsteps start to approach from outside the door, and Shigeo tugs on her arm until she stands up with him. Then all that's running through her head is a reminder to keep her back straight and her head high.

The first person she sees when the door slides open is the same woman that led them back here, bowing to Mr. Ootori, who enters the room next, well-dressed as the last time Kosuke saw him and maybe even icier. A young-looking man with hair that borderlines on too messy enters, but he's holding the arm of a raven-haired beauty, marking him off as a possibility. Then the final member of the quartet enters.

Kyoya. Her fiancé.

He's tall. Taller than her, not quite as much as Tamaki. She _does_ see the resemblance between father and son instantly, but it's not as severe as she'd feared. They have the same jet black hair and pale skin, cool dark eyes, and his angles might not be so severe as Yoshio's, but his glasses renders that a moot point. It's just a little funny, Kosuke thinks to herself: they are as opposing in appearance as they are in upbringing. Raven hair and dark eyes, blonde hair and blue eyes. Born and raised blue-blooded, raised commonly and then body-slammed into wealth.

She can't deny that he's incredibly handsome. She'd have to be blind to not see that. High school-Kosuke might have even blushed and whispered behind her hand to swoon with other girls if he passed by. Unfortunately, as Kosuke looks at him and thinks, "This man will be my husband," she doesn't feel relieved or pleased or anything remotely positive. She doesn't feel anything.

Maybe if she tries to block the fact that they're going to be married from her mind, she can calm down. He's just a guy, and this is like their first date. Just…with their family present, too.

Mr. Ootori and Shigeo say something to each other that Kosuke doesn't catch. Thankfully, she is in her right mind enough to give a respectable bow when his eyes turn to her.

"Kosuke," Mr. Ootori says. "It's nice to see you again."

"You, too, Mr. Ootori."

All Kosuke spots signal-wise is a slight tilt of Mr. Ootori's head before Kyoya bows and introduces himself. "Kyoya Ootori. It's nice to meet you both."

"This is my daughter, Fuyumi, and her husband Tetsu Shido." The two of them bow to either Shigeo or both of them, Kosuke can't tell. She just bows again. They're both smiling, at least. "I hope you don't mind them accompanying us."

"Not at all," answers Shigeo, and Kosuke can't help but feel that the lighthearted icebreaking isn't so genuine. "Mr. and Mrs. Shido, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Shigeo's hand comes on her back in what may seem like a simple gesture, but she takes as the signal to _bow, now._ So she bows at the waist as Shigeo says, "This is Kosuke."

"Hello," she answers. She thinks it might sound stupid to say "nice to meet you" for the third time.

When she stands upright, she tries to at least make some eye contact with Kyoya. She doesn't want him to be offended or anything. Or—

Oh.

Kosuke is infinitely grateful that she has managed to withhold any kind of verbal or physical reaction. Not that she's about to be swooning anytime soon. All she's noticed is that Kyoya's eyes are not exactly like his father's— _Lucky him.—_ and are a shade of gray just slightly lighter. They look like actual _eyes_ and not chips of black ice.

They're just a little pretty, that's all.

But even though he smiles, and even though his voice is smooth when he tells her, "I've been looking forward to meeting you," it feels just a little forced.

Which is perfectly fine, in Kosuke's eyes. She doesn't know his knowledge or mindset on this. She doesn't have a mirror or feedback, so she might look and sound exactly the same when she replies, "Me, too."

So fact about her husband #4: he is polite. (Low-hanging fruit, but cool.)

They all take their seats, Ootoris and Shidos on one side of the table and the… _Amidas_ on the other. Shigeo and Yoshio sit across from each other, same with Kyoya and Kosuke. The Shidos sit sit-by-side. Shortly after, their glasses are filled—wine and champagne for the others, water for her. Kosuke doesn't think she's ever drank from an actual stemmed glass before. Or ate at a full table set of three forks, three spoons, a napkin folded like a pyramid…

So things kind of just…go from there. Shigeo certainly hadn't lied to her; he and Yoshio are the only two who talk to each other. Even the married couple only whisper a few syllables under their breaths. It's not that everyone talked over each other at Kosuke's family's table, but that felt like politeness, whereas this feels more like subordination.

Now, if the two men could just not talk to each other the way characters in a movie talk before they're interrupted by the plot, that would be better.

"I hope business is going as well as usual." "It is, thank you."

"Have you travelled recently?" "I've just returned from a business trip out of town this morning, actually."

"I believe you mentioned part of your manor is being renovated?" "The lounge, yes."

It is monotonous and forced. Two robots held at gunpoint. It hurts to listen to. Taking a sip from her water, Kosuke risks a glance around at the others. Despite the lack of expressions, they seem to agree.

She finally gets some kind of distraction when the first course of the evening arrives. It's a small cup of cold soup, clear green in color. From taste alone, Kosuke guesses there's melon in it. It's incredibly refreshing. She's read so much about multicourse meals at this point, but having never expected to actually take part in one, it's almost thrilling. Which is probably sad, but whatever.

So fair, in fact, that she almost forgets her situation for a second. Then she remembers, and it really, really sucks because the soup doesn't taste so good after that.

The fathers continue their lifeless chitchat, the Shidos are pleasant to one another but quiet, and Kosuke and her fiancé have not said a word to each other apart from greetings.

She wonders if he likes or dislikes her. Again, neutral is good. She doesn't _think_ she's done anything to offend so far. If he doesn't like the way she looks, well…Tough luck on that. She'll just be mindful to be polite and nice. She's nervous about the situation, not him.

When Shigeo and Yoshio finally settle their talk, there is a large stretch of silence. The servers come to take their cups, and Kosuke has spent maybe a little too much time savoring. She's so tempted to slurp it down before it goes, but _gah._ Appearances. She just has to let it go.

"So, Kosuke!" Fuyumi Shido's voice chirps up, refreshingly alive. Kosuke straightens to attention. "You've taken a skip year from college, right?"

"Yes." She goes on, not wanting to answer in monosyllables. "It was just easier, for the time."

"Are you excited to attend Ouran?"

She gets the amount of time it takes to swallow one sip of water to realize that Shigeo had not told her this and she will be attending Ouran University. _Ouran_ University. Not just college, the college for God's chosen people.

So - that's something.

"Yes, I am. I wanted to start college right after high school anyway, so I'm more than happy to start attending the best in the country."

Mr. Ootori only interjects with, "Best in the world." It somehow manages to sound like an agreeable correction and a scolding at the same time.

The doors open once again as servers come in with the second course. Fuyumi tilts her chin ever-so-elegantly to her brother. "Kyoya is in his third year now. Top of his class, too!"

So…#5: He is very smart. An actual fact, this time.

Now that she's said it, though…Kosuke looks to Kyoya, who is looking at the orchid centerpiece on the table but moves just so to let the server set down his plate. It's a medley of carrots and red cabbage glazed and topped with something resembling pepper. There's no time to admire it, though. Now's a prime time to actually _talk_ to him.

"What are you—oh, thank you." Kosuke gives a smile and nod to the server and tries again. "What are you majoring in?"

His blink is the surefire sign that he'd spaced out. That's fine, she won't blame him. She just—

"Business Administration and Management."

…Okay.

She'd asked, he'd answered. He could keep it blunt and simple, he didn't have to go on.

Eye contact, though, that would've been nice.

…He may not like her.

For a minute, she just watches everyone eat their food until she gets an idea. Once she picks up her fork, however, Tetsu Shido hurls a curveball at her: "What will you be majoring in?"

She musters enough telepathic power that she can point toward Shigeo to ask, _Yeah, what am I majoring in?_

"The same, or very similar," Mr. Shigeo answers just readily enough. "We haven't finalized her exact schedule yet."

The Shidos nod in understanding. Perhaps she's a little desperate after all, but Kosuke wants to keep trying. She's not being pushy, she's just making small talk.

"I didn't attend Ouran High School. Is it much different going to the University?"

Her immediate answer is silent. Fuyumi, who has already claimed her title as Kosuke's Favorite Person at the Table, looks expectantly to her brother. The little purse in her lips is so small it's almost unnoticeable. It's strange, because even though Fuyumi doesn't move an inch, Kyoya suddenly looks at her, and she looks at Kosuke, and then he's looking at Kosuke.

"It's certainly a larger scale, but matched in quality."

Kosuke doesn't miss that he's spaced out again, or the brief little sigh at the start of his words, or that he once again looks down at his food instead of her.

Tough walnut to crack, this one. This might be more neutral than she was okay with.

The appetizer is taken away once they're all done, which doesn't take long. Kosuke thanks the server again.

Shigeo leans towards her, and in this instance, she'd actually appreciate a word of advice. Just to get on her fiancé's good side a little more.

"Stop thanking the servers."

Damn it.

The next course comes out—a salad of chopped romaine, tomatoes, shrimp, and avocado all together in a bloom, _woof_ —and the talk between the heads begins again.

A lot of it.

Kosuke listens to the best of her abilities, but it's not much use. She doesn't understand a word they're saying, they just keep talking about business and the past year, people she does not recognize the names of. It's all about Amida Health, too, like there's something about Ootori Medical that they're not to be discussing.

The talk takes up the entire fish course, salmon with a soy sauce marinade. Oh, to dine like this every evening. And yet, it's gone so soon, leaving Kosuke to sit there and bemoan that they're pretty much halfway through the evening and her dialogue with her husband-to-be has been the dullest chitchat known to man.

Inside her clutch, her phone vibrates.

To her, it's loud as a siren, but no one else seems to notice. Her clutch is on her knees under the tablecloth, not the best place but she…panicked. Anyway, she unsnaps it as quietly as she can, keeping her eyes downcast but not obvious. This is the absolute worst possible time to get a text, but if it was anyone, it was going to be Haruhi, and she had to know if something was wrong.

The message _was_ from Haruhi, but all it said was, _Don't worry, I will!_

She's confused, but then she looks at their past messages and—oh. Right. Okay. Maybe they were watching a movie and that's what took her so long to answer. Okay. All good.

The first main course is a roasted poultry, probably quail, with a sort of honey glaze. Each plate gets half, and not knowing any "proper" way to eat it with her fingers, Kosuke takes up her knife and fork and gets to carving. She's done this before, and Marti had given her many tips on it. Plus it's already cooked, so it's easier getting it off the bone—

"Do you cook often, Kosuke?"

Tetsu's voice has her perking up to attention, not because she was zoning out, but because she was just— _really, really concentrated._ Unfortunately, she looks like a deer in headlights, because Tetsu almost chuckles as he says, "I'm just saying, your knife skills are impeccable."

Kosuke looks down at her plate. She doesn't mean to brag, but she supposes she has done a good job of carving. "Oh, thank you. Yes, I cook just about every day."

"See, maybe if I had that kind of resolve, I wouldn't turn everything I touch into ashes," Fuyumi bemoans. Kosuke giggles, remembering when she was just the same. "The other day, I tried to make a panini and one of the waitstaff threw it away because she thought it was garbage…"

"I enjoy cooking very much, but I'm also cooking for my siblings. They can be a little picky about trying new things sometimes. I actually found a new omurice recipe with more vegetables in it, and they didn't even notice, and when I make my sister's lunch I make the rice into animals and the sausages into octopuses—"

Kosuke cuts herself off when Shigeo's foot presses sharply into hers again. The flood of blood into her cheeks has to be forced down. Leave it to her to start babbling like an overexcited child in a professional environment. At least the Shido couple don't seem to mind.

She clears her throat and continues, "You know. I want to cook food that makes them happy."

Fuyumi has been smiling ever since she started talking, and only waits until she has finished to exclaim, "You have siblings!"

On the outside, Kosuke smiles and nods, but on the inside:

_Are we seriously going to keep leaving out this detail?_

This whole backstory he'd made up about him coming to the rescue of his daughter, estranged since the separation from his wife and raised poor—the worst thing anyone could _ever_ be, dear heavens!—and he just keeps leaving out the part where she has two living, human siblings, too.

They will have words. They were going to, anyway, but now they are seriously going to have words, because Kosuke's going to have to get this guy to figure out how all of his plans are filled with more holes than Swiss cheese.

Unaware of her stewing, Tetsu asks, "How old are they?"

"My sister Minami is eight, and my brother Hitsuji is five."

"Aww," coos Fuyumi. "Little angels!"

Tetsu laughs. "Are they?"

"For the most part. They, uh…" She chuckles. Earlier that day, Hitsuji had gotten the first two letters of his name crayoned onto the hallway wall before she found him. "They've had me running in circles more than once."

"Oh, I believe you. I was the only girl among three boys growing up." Fuyumi sighs and tucks a silky strand of raven hair behind her ear. Her hair is _impeccable,_ really. " _That_ was running in circles. Do you all get along?"

Shigeo's shoe presses down onto hers under the table. Again.

So not only has he neglected to mention her other family, he doesn't want her to bring it up, period. Her siblings are officially a taboo topic. She can take a good guess why.

It's awkward, changing her voice from amiable to clipped. "Yes, we do."

And that's that for the halfway point.

After that is the palate cleanser course. It's odd to Kosuke to be eating something sweet and cold in the middle of a meal, but it's no less heavenly. The culinary textbook part of her brain reminds her that it serves a function, too, to clean the tongue before moving on through the meal so the next courses are more flavorful. Though mindful to not give herself a brainfreeze, she savors every icy, raspberry-flavored bite.

Unfortunately, her enjoyment of it is plummeting less and less and less, to the point where her stomach is started to churn despite the aptly-named ambrosia she'd just eaten. This isn't good. This is the exact opposite of good. She's supposed to be collecting facts about the person she'll be spending the rest of her life with, and she has gotten a whopping number of _five._

She knows there will be time, that this doesn't doom the course of the future, but come on. First impressions matter.

Then, mercifully, Mr. Ootori and Shigeo scoot their chairs back almost in unison. Mr. Ootori nods to his children and son-in-law. "Mr. Amida and I need to discuss something in private for a moment. Excuse us."

They leave, and it's the exact feeling of being a child again, sitting in the classroom and watching the teacher step out, leaving her students to their own unsupervised devices.

The giddiness lasts for all of two seconds before her mind goes into overdrive. She's not alone with him yet, but they finally have the spotlight off. This is a golden opportunity to talk and get to know each other. If he's like her, and he's been nervous this whole time, he might even feel better now. Having Shigeo leave has taken a thousand pounds off her nerves.

The little ray of hope shines brighter when, as their glasses are taken away, Kyoya _finally_ asks her a question. "Will you be attending Ouran this upcoming semester, or later?"

Uh-oh. "Hopefully this semester!"

Her hope that the giggle will make it come off as joking is dashed when Kyoya only frowns a little…more. "You're not sure yet?"

 _He isn't one of the Suits,_ Kosuke reminds herself. _Don't be so giggly._ "Well, I live in Karuizawa right now, so it's going to be difficult attending a school in Tokyo. There's a lot of things we're still working through right now."

Fuyumi hums her sympathy as the second main course comes in. "Will you be staying with your father, or somewhere else? The dorms, maybe?"

"Oh, I don't think I'll be moving!" Kosuke waves her hand _no,_ and catches herself. That is incredibly rude, no doubt. She clears her throat, _almost_ thanks the waiter for her plate (pork medallions, maybe?) before remembering that nonsensical rule, and goes on, "I mean, I'm not sure of how I'll be attending, but…"

Kyoya is only frowning deeper, and Kosuke's stomach is only dropping farther. "Have you only just now starting planning this?"

"All of this is only just now being—"

"'All of this'?"

He looks so confused right now, and the thought occurs to Kosuke if she isn't the only one with a father keeping important information from those that need it. They all must know _some_ details about her current "circumstances", but had Shigeo criminally undersold just how new this all is for her?

"All of this change, I mean." Judging by the slight turn in his head, he _kind of_ knows what she's talking about, and all she can do is keep bumbling an explanation. "Becoming the heiress and attending a new college, it's just a huge change in structure and schedule. Not to mention the children…"

It sinks it a little bit more how she, Minami, and Hitsuji are _all_ going to have to adapt to this new lifestyle. Kyoya can't read her mind, but she fails to hide the gears turning in her head, and he sees it. He asks in a not-a-question way, "Mr. Amida making you his heir has been _very_ recent."

"Yes."

"Are you _prepared_ to be the heiress to a company like Amida Health?"

"I—Not right now, no, but we're working very hard on preparing me for taking the role. It's just…We have to plan everything before we can even begin…"

"We understand," Tetsu grants her. "It's a struggle even if you _were_ prepared for it. Right, Fuyumi?"

Fuyumi nods, but then…

Kyoya huffs, scoots his chair away from the table, and stands to his feet. "I'm very sorry, please excuse me."

And he…leaves.

His first time meeting his fiancée...

...and he has just left the room.

In all of Kosuke's bad scenarios, of embarrassing herself or letting something slip, it had never crossed her mind that she would annoy him to the point that he would huffily _leave the damn room._

She crosses her fingers and thinks, _Maybe he just went to the bathroom,_ maybe this, maybe that, but ten minutes of a silence thick enough to drown in go by and he has not returned. Her plate is taken away completely untouched. She hates wasting such good food, but she can't make herself eat another bite. Her stomach feels like a rock.

Her fiancé's first impression of her is that she's inexperienced, possibly stupid, and probably frustrating. So now she's sitting here at a table of strangers, angry, humiliated, confused, and as the cherry on top: now realizing she's spent far too much time mentally whining like a child, drowning in her own self-pity.

Dessert comes. Three diners, and not one of them so much as lifts a fork. Kosuke will be kicking herself for this later. Seriously, who turns down panna cotta that looks crafted by the heavens?

"Hey."

Fuyumi speaks once the last server has left the room, and Kosuke almost can't look at her. She's developed a bitter taste for looks of pity by this point, but she tries not to hold it against her…future sister-in-law. God. She's been the nicest person of the night.

"I promise Kyoya isn't usually like this." She sighs. "Things at Ootori Medical are just very tense right now, the stress is getting to him. He's very nice, I swear."

"I understand," Kosuke says, and she nods, but it doesn't help much. Even assuming that stress was to blame, this is their first impression of each other. It's already been thrown off the cliff.

Tetsu readjusts his tie and shares a brief glance to his wife. "You know, Fuyumi and I's first meeting didn't go so great, either. I was shaking in my shoes the whole time."

"I drank so much wine in a hurry I started spitting and snorting like a pig. And I got wine on my _white_ dress." Fuyumi leans back and places her palms on her belly to show her. "I spent the whole night walking around like I was pregnant just to hide the stain!"

Kosuke laughs…to be polite. They're so nice. She likes them. She knows they're just trying to help. She wishes she weren't so melodramatic right now, she just can't make herself feel better.

They all take a grand total of one bite apiece before lapsing back into whatever it is they're in. Fuyumi places her fork back down and taps her pinky against the tablecloth. Tetsu takes a sip of wine. Kosuke plays with a thread on the tablecloth.

At the very least, Kosuke knows her first impression with _them_ is fair for now. She'd rather not ruin it by pouting, so she finally sighs and says, "It was nice to meet you both. I thought it was just going to be him and our fathers, but…I'm glad."

The smiles she gets are both sincere and piteous. Fuyumi plucks a mint leaf off her panna cotta and sets it aside before replying, "I kind of badgered my way here. I wanted to meet you, too. See what you were like."

Instead of hiding back in on herself, Kosuke figures she can just ask this time. "Anything good?"

"You seem perfectly nice and polite. Just…unprepared."

Kosuke looks off to the side. "That's one way to put it."

Tetsu says, "I'm sorry if this is a rude way of putting this, but we were told about Mr. Amida just recently making you his heir after being…estranged for so long." He cringes as he says the word, but Kosuke doesn't. She just nods him on. "I understand that it's a lot to take in, but how prepared have you been, exactly?"

Kosuke swallows, thinking. She doesn't want to lie to them, but neither can she say the whole truth, or speak ill of her darling, dearest father.

"Can I be honest with you both?" Husband and wife nod in almost perfect unison. "Not much at all. With all his work and all my responsibilities, we hardly have time to discuss anything. If we could just get _started,_ but right now…I hardly know anything. I don't know anything about Amida Health, let alone any other business in Japan... Not through lack of trying! I just…"

"We understand. Poor thing…" Fuyumi shakes her head just so. "I can't imagine how much this is to take in all at once."

"No, no, it's fine. I just wish I knew more than I do. I'll get to work on it as soon as possible. I should have already."

She thinks that's the only acceptable response. She'd slipped for a second there, becoming a broken little girl and not a respectable heiress. They're not here to listen to her whine.

"If you don't mind me saying so…" Fuyumi shifts in her seat, posture a little straighter. "After going through this all so recently, you agreed to an arranged marriage very quickly."

There is just a second where she pauses, and Kosuke panics, because she has no idea how she's going to respond to this. Or at least, no idea that isn't going to sound horribly, horribly fake and ingenuine. She can neither brush it off nor go into poetic acceptance.

"I don't think I have to say that takes a lot of maturity! And trust me, even though I can't read Kyoya's mind, I know he'd only ever like a woman with maturity."

Kosuke says, "Oh, thank you!"

Kosuke thinks, _This is her normal. There's nothing strange about arranged marriages to her, she was IN one. She isn't going to be your bestie sister-in-law who can relate to what you're going through._

Whatever Shigeo and Mr. Ootori discuss, it takes the rest of the meal. Kyoya returns just a few minutes before them, and says nothing to her or anyone else besides a simple apology for taking so long.

 _I should say something,_ Kosuke thinks, but in the end, they sit in silence until their fathers return. It isn't to finish their food, either, it's just to leave.

Once they come in and stand at the head of the table, the others stand to their feet in near-unison. Kosuke takes too long pulling out wrinkles in her skirt and switching her clutch from one hand to the other. She hates them, really. So stupid.

"This was a wonderful evening, Mr. Ootori." Shigeo doesn't look at her as she comes to stand by his side. "Thank you all for the fine company."

The Shidos both smile and nod, all sincere and welcoming. Tetsu says, "We're sorry for tagging along unannounced. We hope you didn't mind the intrusion."

There has to be something off about her father. He smiles briefly, like he knows he's supposed to give a kind and charming tug of his lips, but it's so quick and fake it's more like his mouth twitched out of his control. "No intrusion at all."

"Miss Kosuke, it was nice to see you again," Mr. Ootori tells her.

Fuyumi adds, "It was wonderful to meet you! I hope we see each other again soon."

 _I guess they can't really say the word "engagement" just yet._ Still, Kosuke nods and smiles and agrees, but that's just about all she can do before there's another farewell, from her partner in the spotlight.

"I'm glad I was finally able to meet you."

God…How more unsure could he possibly sound?

More importantly, does she sound any better when she replies, "You, too."

Their fathers exchange just a few more words, and while Shigeo lightly takes her arm in his and leads her away, Kosuke looks at Kyoya, trying not to stare, thinking, _What do I know about you? What do you know about me?_

Then he disappears behind the doorway.

Thus concludes their first meeting.

It's a little strange, walking back through the restaurant and into the nighttime streets of Tokyo. It's that feeling after watching a movie in a theater, wherein she disconnects from the past few hours into what feels more real.

They walk past the front and down the pavement a small way before Shigeo finally stops and lets go of her arm.

"That went slightly better than I was expecting," he tells her without a hint of a compliment.

Kosuke takes a deep breath of the fresh air. "What did you and Mr. Ootori leave to talk about?"

It's almost unnoticeable how he runs his tongue over his teeth, but she notices. And is annoyed. "It was a private conversation."

"About Kyoya and I."

"When we get the confirmation from Mr. Ootori, we're going to talk about how this—" He gestures a finger between the two of them. "—is going to work. It seems we're not on the same page."

 _How the hell are we supposed to be on the same page when you decide over and over not to tell me things I should obviously know?_ Shigeo's look goes colder, and Kosuke stops the appalled expression she's probably wearing. She doesn't nod, she just doesn't protest.

So he just continues. "There aren't to be any public announcements of this yet, but I'll tell you to keep your schedule clear. Whether tomorrow or the day after, we have to set this in motion, and it's going to take more work than you've ever done in your life, I'll guarantee it."

Kosuke is inclined to disagree, but she keeps quiet.

A vehicle pulls up to the curb, not a limousine but just as luxurious a vehicle, but Kosuke doesn't know every car model ever, so…Yeah. When he opens the door, he stands in front rather than hold it open for her. So they are departing, Kosuke guesses.

"Kyoya might come to see you again. Wait to see if he does. Your limousine is around the corner."

Kosuke is inclined to disagree, but she keeps quiet.

"Keep your schedule clear," Shigeo emphasizes again. "And expect a call from me soon."

He steps into the car, it drives away, and that's it. Kosuke wants to take a sigh of relief, but she knows that this was just the prologue. She will be attending the most prestigious college in Japan soon, she figures _something_ will change about their living situation, she has an entire business to become the heiress to, a whole world to learn, an entire life going down a different path ahead of her.

Needless to say, she's already exhausted.

She has to remember to take baby steps lest she let this all overwhelm her. So tonight was just one step, and…Well, it wasn't a good one.

Looking down at her heels, Kosuke thinks, _I have to be more positive about this._ There's no way Kyoya hates her, he just probably isn't very impressed. That's _mostly_ fine. First impressions are important, but she'll just have to make up for it. It's either quit trying and fall deeper or try harder and stand back up. Keep going and be strong.

Her phone buzzes again.

_Is everything okay?_

Whatever time it is, it's late, and Haruhi probably isn't interested in her spilling all the details while she's watching over the children. She still deserves a phone call, however, and Kosuke needs somewhere more private than a nighttime Tokyo sidewalk to do that.

 _Shigeo said to wait…_ Kosuke looks back to the door, where men and women dressed to the nines are still filing in and out. _…but I doubt he's coming for me._

So Kosuke instead turns and heads down the sidewalk for her ride back to the hotel. Back there, she strips down to her pajamas and follows through on that phone call, checking in on the children and promising more details in the morning. It _is_ tempting to lie in the 10000-count bedsheets and wallow in some more self-pity, but there's been quite enough of that. She just has to try harder from now on.

 _I can get him to like me,_ she thinks before she drifts off to sleep. _I…have to get him to like me._


	14. Inevitable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya meets his fiancee for the first time, and despite having expecting it his whole life, he's still not prepared.

In some way, Kyoya supposes that he should be _happy_ about this.

He'd spent so long now whining and lamenting how the path that had been laid before him—enter an arranged marriage with a girl beneficial to the Ootori Group—had turned muddy and overgrown when he fell in love with Tamaki and Haruhi against his own will. Really, all he needed was to rest the back of his hand against his forehead to complete the image of melodrama incarnate.

Now, the path has dried and the branches trimmed: he _is_ engaged now. He can mark that off the list of things that were to happen in his life, alongside items like "learn how to ride a bike" and "graduate high school."

Kyoya is _not_ happy, he can't even _force_ himself to be happy, and it's been such a long time that he's felt what it's _like_ to be happy that he couldn't do it if he tried.

It doesn't matter how many times he tells himself that he saw this coming, how inevitable this was. He has officially been tethered to someone for the rest of his days. Already his plate is filled to spill and _now_? Now he's just been handed a different plate entirely.

Everything that he does, he has to be mindful of, because in the world Kyoya lives in, making a mistake in front of just the wrong audience could cost his entire family. That is why, for all those years that he preferred the company of his books and computer to his peers, he was still friendly and approachable. It is one thing to come off as studious and focused and another thing to come off as closed-off and cold. Don't seek them out, don't turn them away.

Even after Tamaki crash-landed into his life, that hasn't changed much. If anything, the Host Club only _amplified_ that need for constant charm. Even if he was only the manager and wasn't an "option" for their customers, his appeal was just as important as the others'. Good publicity is good publicity. If one of his peers' report to their parents was simply that Kyoya is _mysterious_ and _handsome_ and _dark,_ he'd take that over him being the bitter shutoff that never talked to anyone.

It's always been a two-way street, of course, but he's never worried about his family bringing any of that trouble to them. It was almost as if they'd taken _classes_ in how to be pleasant to outsiders, and in the cases of Yuuichi and his father, they had the shield of being so important that if they seemed unapproachable, that was just a sign of a serious man always focused on something or another.

With a fiancée, Kyoya is never going to be able to take off the mask and talk to her in a candid way that isn't coated in a charming smile, and he wonders if he'll ever be able to believe what she says for the same reason. He will have to worry about how what he does affects her and _her_ family, and vice-versa.

There is nothing wrong with marriage. This in particular just feels like a stone has been shackled to his foot.

This is all, of course, only addressing one half of the issue.

He'd never thought he'd fall in love, but he did, _twice,_ and though he'd already swallowed the massive pill that he would never be with either of them, this is just a different pill entirely, whether he should've swallowed it already or not. Yes, in his world, marriage is prioritized for business, but that doesn't take away the inherent romance in it. A marriage does not need love, but it is expected, and that goes for the world at large.

Had he hoped that he might be able to move on from Tamaki and Haruhi and maybe find someone else? He doesn't even know.

What he feels isn't good, and he doesn't need an expert to tell him that. It is never going to be fulfilled in any way. _Kyoya_ is in love with Tamaki and Haruhi, _they_ are not in love with _him._ It is a one-way mirror. He knows the word is "pining", but he hates that schmaltzy, melodramatic, weepy word.

Loving someone in and of itself, however, is not bad. It's actually rather wonderful, in Kyoya's opinion. In Tamaki or Haruhi's presence, things are easier. Everything that's sharp softens and everything that's cold warms up. When they smile and laugh, it makes him feel at ease.

Being in love is wonderful, but the idea of having it happen _again…_ It almost scares him. Because doesn't that mean Kyoya isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and that his heart at least is too easily swayed?

So much did it unnerve him that he was in _extreme_ doubt that it would happen.

Meaning that he'd be in a marriage that was not only loveless, but would be the final nail in the coffin. Kyoya falls in love with Tamaki and Haruhi. They only love each other. They marry each other, Kyoya marries someone else he doesn't love at all. The end.

He _could_ go on and on about how unfair this all is, how it hurts him. How even if it sounds entitled or selfish, Kyoya _wants_ to have reciprocation, he _wants_ to have a window, not a one-way mirror, he _wants_ someone who feels for him the way he feels for them. How it isn't wrong for him to want that. How Kyoya is terrified of a life of unfulfilled desire and if that's going to change him.

The bottom line, however, is this: It. Does not. Matter.

Kyoya is one, single person whose suffering stems from the middle school fact that the people he likes don't like him back. Boo hoo.

 _Hundreds_ of people are counting on Ootori Medical to find its footing again. A partnership with Amida Health will be a lifesaver tossed to a drowning man. With a union like this, they will not lose thousands upon thousands in revenue. They will not have to let go of so many employees who depend on their jobs to provide not just for themselves, but for families that relied on them. This could save their image from permanent fracture. This could save Ootori Medical as a _whole,_ because there was no way to predict how far the dominos would fall: in a few generations, a loss like this could reduce them to a shadow of their former glory.

 _Kyoya_ is the playing piece here. He is the only Ootori child not yet married, and a marriage is the most surefire way of keeping a partnership cemented.

So: his family, hundreds of employees, and the company at large…or Kyoya's feelings?

The question doesn't exist.

After he gets the brief period of frustration and distress out of his system, it's easier. What helps the most is the thing that at first did nothing at all, which was reminding himself that he saw this coming. Even if that plan has been sidelined, years of preparation have not gone down the drain. It's just a matter of touching up on his knowledge.

* * *

All his _personal feelings_ aside, it is a very tricky process, due in no small part to the secrecy that needs to happen.

There are very few idiots in the world of the elite, and even the dumbest of the dumb would hear of DomenMed's separation from Ootori Medical, the announcement of the youngest Ootori to the heiress of another highly profitable medical technology company, and conclude: _Oh, so they got panic-engaged._

There is no amount of time to spare that will save them the gossip _without_ costing them precious, precious minutes to get the company back on track. They may only have a matter of days, so the best they can do is work with that.

As far as Kyoya can tell, the engagement is already official, it just isn't in ink just yet. Mr. Amida and Kyoya's father have both agreed to it, Mr. Amida's daughter has agreed to it, so that's all that's needed. There will be one meeting before they set it in stone, for the sake of propriety. Until that happens, _no one_ outside the Ootori family is going to hear so much as a peep about this.

When Akito and Yuuichi find out, Kyoya does not see their reactions. They have become ghosts, they're so busy with keeping everything from falling apart.

Fuyumi is nothing but supportive, and it annoys him to no end.

"It's finally happening," she sighs in delight the day before the dinner. She has come into his room and plopped herself in an armchair for the clear purpose of gushing for at least an hour. "You've finally found someone! It's amazing!"

"'Found', huh?" He can't help but genuinely huff a laugh at the word. He hadn't found a thing. But he lets her swoon and sigh about it, because it's a lost battle from the get-go. "Please watch the coffee."

She reels her flailing in a little to stop herself from kicking it off the table. Again. "What do you think she'll look like? Her personality? Oh, who am I kidding. You must already know by now."

"Actually, no." Kyoya closes his laptop shut, only to pull his weekly planner out instead. He finds it's easier to get through these conversations if he has something to do with his hands. "I don't know anything about her."

Fuyumi blinks, shocked, but not deterred. "Why not?"

"I just thought it might be nicer to get to know her firsthand, that's all."

That's a good answer, he thinks, but it's a lie. His father had told him to refrain from background-checking his fiancée the way he did most others.

"Just don't," was all the explanation he got.

So what _does_ he know about his bride-to-be?

Well, her name is Kosuke. She is nineteen. After her parents' divorce, she was raised in a common life until her mother died around a year ago. Mr. Amida only learned about her very existence then, and as his only child, graciously offered her heirdom to his company.

Kyoya knows more about his future father-in-law than his actual fiancée. He knows that Mr. Amida is an only child, his parents' marriage only lasting ten years and his mother having passed already. He knows when Mr. Amida's birthday is (Janurary 2nd) and that he graduated from a college in New York. He knows how much Amida Health brings in on an annual basis.

He knows that Mr. Amida married once, divorced, and never married again, but details on the matter are sparse. He supposes he could find more answers looking into Mr. Amida's ex-wife, Emiko Futunari, but he feels that that will inevitably lead him to looking into his fiancée, just as his father instructed him not to do.

So that's the real answer, but he doesn't tell that to Fuyumi, and she swoons again with pink cheeks.

"That's so sweet!" Suddenly she has inhuman speed, because her arms are wrapping around him tight enough to choke.

"Fuyumi, please. I'm trying to work."

"Oh, come on, Kyoya, of all the times to keep working!" Finally she swivels the chair around, and Kyoya just gives up. "This is your _fiancée_ you're talking about! At least tell me what you're looking forward to."

Kyoya takes off his glasses for a moment to rub at his brow. "Such as?"

"Well, what do you want to do for your first date?" She doesn't pause. "What ideas do you have for the wedding? When will it be? What kind of rings do you want? Where do you guys want to live? Oh, do you think you'll have kids?"

Each word is like one more object being forced into his already-full hands, but it's the word _kids_ that stabs into his gut like a knife. _Kids._ Good _God._ "You do remember we haven't even met yet, don't you?"

"Sorry. I got overexcited." Slowly the smile fades from her lips, and she stands up straight. "Why so quiet, huh?"

Kyoya pauses, and wonders if he's lying when he answers, "I don't know what to say."

The answer only makes her smile reappear more genuine, curiously, softer instead of brighter. "That's okay. You know, I wasn't bouncing off the walls when Tetsu and I got engaged, either. I was a nervous wreck." She sits back down in her armchair and picks up her coffee cup. "What about the others? Have they said anything?"

"No. This is supposed to be under wraps until it's all official."

"Mm. Right. Well, that's unfortunate." Fuyumi sends him a sad smile. "You know they're going to explode when they find out."

Kyoya is aware, but that is not why he is dreading telling them.

* * *

The night of the dinner starts off on a poor note, because the _morning_ of—and in truth, maybe even before then—Kyoya's stomach is heavy as lead and his body is stiff enough to go sore. He's dreading going into this, and he knows he shouldn't be, least of all because that's just stupid.

He's going to meet his future wife tonight, the person with whom he's going to be sharing the rest of his life with, and he is already fearing the worst-case scenarios. Amaya Domen couldn't have made it clearer that she only wanted him to admit defeat, to be the most un-Kyoya he could possibly be and confess his undying love, just so she could say she could win. Even so, Mr. Ootori and Mr. Domen had both at least entertained the idea of pairing the two together. That's why Kyoya keptmeeting her and being "civil."

Their fathers had realized maybe even before they cut ties with one another that the two simply wouldn't have worked in the long run. If Mr. Ootori had proposed the idea when Mr. Domen made it clear that their business together was over—and Kyoya had no proof that he had—then Mr. Domen had shot it down.

So now, with how utterly desperate and near-hopeless their situation has become, Kyoya doubts his father would much care about compatibility at this point. Mr. Ootori did have standards. He didn't think highly of those who horribly spoiled their children until they acted like toddlers well into their twenties. But in this situation, those standards may have to change.

In short, Kyoya may be engaged to another Amaya. Or someone worse.

Or not. He can try to be optimistic about this. He can ask for low-hanging fruit: polite, kind, mature. Perhaps Kosuke Amida is a perfectly fine woman.

And it isn't fair to compare her to Tamaki or Haruhi, not at all. If they meet, and she is talking to him civilly and politely, and all he thinks as she speaks is _You're not who I want you to be,_ that is just cruel.

It isn't like that, not really. For everything he's feeling, none of it is directed _at_ his fiancée. He's the only one who knows his own thoughts, it isn't like she agreed to the marriage because she wanted to rub it in Kyoya Ootori's face that he'll never be with Tamaki Suoh _or_ Haruhi Fujioka! (Mwa-ha-ha!) No, that is an immature way of thinking.

He just can't ignore that she is the epicenter of the issue. She is the final nail in the coffin. He never even had the shadow of a chance with either Tamaki or Haruhi anyway, but now he is engaged with someone else. He always knew that he would likely end up in a business-beneficial engagement, but now it's finally happening.

And as for the question, is there any chance that maybe love is going to come from this? Will he be as lucky as his sister and others, who find love in their arranged marriages and live happily ever after?

It's not _impossible,_ but he thinks it might as well be. Which is…good?

* * *

He imagined the night playing out several different ways. Fuyumi was not something he accounted for.

When he sees her standing outside of Ambrosia, he doesn't ask what she's doing there, he already knows. While his father exits the car and talks to their chauffeur, he just asks, "How long have you been planning this surprise?"

Fuyumi perks up like the rising sun when she hears his voice, but has the decency to look a little sheepish as he goes on. She rocks back on her heels a bit, which is almost impressive considering their height. "I had to ask Father a hundred times before he finally agreed earlier today. But it worked out, so be thankful!"

He is surprised to see Tetsu approach from behind and take his place beside his wife. In a black suit and lavender tie—to match her empire dress; Fuyumi liked for them to match when they went out—he looks very proper and professional. His eternally shaggy hair, not so much.

"We thought you might want some more familiar faces there," he chuckles in greeting.

Kyoya raises a brow.

"It was Fuyumi's idea."

Fuyumi puffs up her cheeks at being ratted out, but Kyoya just nods, satisfied. "You can just say you wanted front-row seats, Fuyumi. I won't be offended."

 _She_ is, though, and puffs up to pufferfish levels. "I'm not here to ogle or anything! I just remember how nervous I was when I first met Tetsu and I thought maybe you'd appreciate some support."

Kyoya raises a brow. Again.

"…And also, I wanted to meet my future sister-in-law." She sticks up a finger in the air. "But my first point still stands! I would've loved to have you there with me when I met Tetsu."

Kyoya just shakes his head. "I'm sure you're right. If I was there, you definitely wouldn't have spilled wine on your dress."

"And you could've just helped with the small ta—you _noticed?!"_

"Kind of hard not to." Tetsu holds his hands fingers-over-fingrs just below his belly button. "You walked around like this all night."

Fuyumi's face takes on a fine pinkish glow, and she huffs. "Well, I'd rather do that than be shaking like a Chihuahua."

Kyoya sighs, not without fondness. "On second thought, now that you're telling me this, I know what _not_ to do when I meet my fiancée. Thank you."

Tetsu and Fuyumi both chirp, "You're welcome!" Then, after they realize what he'd said, both shout, _"Hey!"_

From behind him, Mr. Ootori says, "Mr. and Ms. Amida are awaiting us inside." Just a second later, he walks between the three of them, marching ahead to lead them through the doors. "Let's not keep them waiting."

So with that brief moment of levity out of the way, they all follow him in, and Kyoya does his best to focus on the present and not let all the dresses and suits and lights blur together into the background. There is no increase in his heartbeat or sweat on his palms, the dread in his gut just grows heavier.

Kyoya walks directly behind his father, Tetsu and Fuyumi a few feet behind them. Mr. Ootori speaks in a volume meant just for him, almost unheard above the light hum of conversation in the restaurant. "What all do you know about Kosuke?"

Kyoya dutifully answers, "Only what you've told me."

They come to one of the hosts, who nods to them once before leading them down one of the dimly-lit hallways. Mr. Ootori continues, "I'm going to tell you again: Ms. Amida has only recently been introduced into high society. Don't be surprised if she doesn't have every answer to every question."

"Yes, Father." He'd admittedly forgotten about that. Kosuke Amida was raised in a common life, wherever her parentage came from. A new definition of "New Money," almost. He supposes he'll have to be mindful not to offend.

Mr. Ootori's stride lags for just a second, enough to bring them just a _little_ closer, and his voice drops even lower. "Remember too that Ms. Amida has been through hard times recently. Don't ask anything that will upset her."

Kyoya _didn't_ forget that his fiancée had only just recently lost her mother, but…Well, he had skipped over the sympathy when he learned it, which he knows is cold of him. Kyoya has never known the grief of losing one of his family members, let alone one of his parents, but he can sympathize all the same. He can't imagine that kind of stress, so even before he's met his fiancée, he must admit he has pity for her.

Speaking of mothers…

…and that is as far down that train of thought as he gets before the door opens and they're led inside.

Mr. Amida's eyes alone could rival Kyoya's father's in severity, but otherwise, they couldn't be more opposite. Mr. Amida is a clean-shaven man with no glasses, dark blonde hair combed neatly away from his face, and strikingly blue eyes. Nothing about him is sharp or intimidating. He seems more like a man who is so used to the constant need for charm that his default setting is "vaguely approachable."

His father and future father-in-law go through the pleasantries of greeting one another and introducing their family, Mr. Amida never so much as skipping a beat when introduced to the unexpected additions of Fuyumi and Tetsu. There are polite smiles all around, and Kyoya makes sure to keep his up as well.

While this all happens, he finally takes in his fiancée, standing beside her father with the same polite, almost vacant smile.

Kosuke Amida is a petite woman who only looks so much like her father in the abstract sense. She has none of her father's height, perhaps five and a half feet. Her hair is pale blonde but Kyoya can't tell how long it is, pinned back in a bun probably designed to highlight its softness. She's standing with a straight posture and shoulders just slightly back, but there is something rigid in her structure, which he believes is nervousness. He won't blame her.

She's a beautiful woman, he can't deny that. He just also can't deny that there is no pull, no spark, not even a distant desire to know her better.

She unnerves him.

Mr. Amida introduces her, and she says "Hello" and bows to him just a bit too lowly before standing upright again.

On second thought, the resemblance between the Amidas is not wholly abstract. Their bright blue eyes are almost mirror copies.

Kyoya does as Kyoya is supposed to do and bows to her, as well, uplifting his smile just a touch and saying, "I've been looking forward to meeting you."

Kosuke pauses very, very briefly but it's one millisecond enough for him to wonder if she caught onto the lie dripping from his teeth. "Me, too."

They all take their seats, and though Kyoya has no taste for champagne, he doesn't stop it from being poured into his glass. Any lingering thoughts about Haruhi and Tamaki are shoved far away into a dark corner. He has to be aware and awake now. However final this is, rudeness and dismission will not earn any marks in his favor from anyone at the table.

Figuring that staying in the moment will keep him from thinking too much, he listens to his father and Mr. Amida speak. It isn't much, just the small talk for the propriety of small talk. Kyoya doubts his father has a care in the world that the lounge of the Amida manor is being renovated.

Kyoya looks to Kosuke without staring. Her eyes are downcast as she takes a sip of water, but then Kyoya realizes that she's actually looking at her plate and silverware. Then the tablecloth. Then the stenciled imagery on the walls. She has very expressive eyes, and that's fine, but Kyoya is curious to find, well…curiosity in them.

He wonders how many times she's been in a restaurant like this. Or if this is her first, even.

The first course of cold melon soup comes, and Kyoya drinks while he listens.

"Have you encountered any trouble since returning to Japan?" "No, everything has been well, thank you."

"I heard your last quarter was one of your most successful yet. Congratulations." "I appreciate it."

"I don't suppose you've seen Madame Karuma as of recent?" "I saw her just the other day, actually."

As far as ice-breaking conversations go, this is actually one of the better ones. Dinners like this work in a limbo between business and cordiality. Too much of the former would come off as cold, and too much of the latter would come off as chummy. And of course, it is Kyoya's job to stay in his place and not interrupt. The only other conversation is between Fuyumi and Tetsu, and they knowingly keep their volume as nothing higher than whispers.

Being on the same side of the table, however, Kyoya is close enough to hear.

" _Do you think she doesn't like it?"_ asks Tetsu.

" _Could be,"_ replies Fuyumi. _"Don't drink all of yours. We don't want to pressure her into drinking it all if she doesn't like it."_

" _Right,"_ he nods, and the two of them drink their soup exactly two-thirds down before leaving the bowls be.

Simultaneous annoyance and fondness for them taking this so gravely. That is the typical experience with the Shidos. And Tamaki, but that was a whole new deal.

He's still a little surprised when Fuyumi gives her husband a "go time" nod and chirps, "So, Kosuke! You've taken a skip year from college, right?"

Kyoya had taken his eyes off his fiancée at some point, but in the short second he brings his gaze back over to her, he sees how she perks up from an almost wilted posture. She strikes him as someone who doesn't hide her emotions easily, but he can't say for sure. She certainly does not seem happy, but who is he to judge?

"Yes. It was just easier, for the time."

While Kosuke lifts up her glass to take a sip of water—rude, someone's talking to her—Fuyumi goes on: "Are you excited to attend Ouran?"

Kosuke sets the glass back down and puts that amiable smile back on her face. She at least has that down pat. "Yes, I am. I wanted to start college right after high school anyway, so I'm more than happy to start attending the best in the country."

There's another reminder that she's a little too _real_ for Kyoya to be comfortable with. As childish as it was, he'd been imagining his hypothetical fiancée as a featureless figure for years now, and he'd thought this would be easier if he kept that going even after meeting said hypothesis.

He shouldn't be so unnerved by someone, especially not for some asinine reason like this. He's upset because his fiancée is a real person with real goals, a real family, and who has suffered real hardships. That doesn't make her easier to talk to, easier to relate to. It makes it _harder_ , because the more real she becomes, the heavier the load weighs.

No, it wasn't fair to expect his fiancée to be a paper doll that he'd just have to carry around for the rest of his life as he kept doing as he did. He'd never had that train of thought. So it is doubly stupid to be so upset about it.

"What are you majoring in?"

Kyoya only gets one second to process a lot, and that lot is that they've been served a new course, the conversation has kept going, his fiancée has spoken to him, and he has done one of the rudest things one could ever do at any meeting of any kind and spaced out.

So when he says, "Business Administration and Management," he is not _actively_ trying to be cold or standoffish. He is caught off-guard, and he's not used to being that.

Kosuke doesn't ask anything besides that, and he thinks he's grateful.

 _Get it together, you can't act like this, especially not with an audience,_ Kyoya scolds himself. He keeps eating, but he's so one-track-minded he can't even register the taste. _You're being rude. Don't tune her out like that._

Then there's something pressing against his foot—Fuyumi's shoe. Looking up at his sister, Kyoya has to amend her for being able to communicate with just her eyes so well. She's smiling expectantly, but her eyes say _Snap out of it!_

Because Kosuke has spoken to him. Again. And he has to once again hit rewind to catch what she said—"I didn't attend Ouran High School. Is it much different going to the University?"—all in the span of a mere second.

"It's certainly a larger scale, but matched in quality." Kyoya wishes he could hear his own voice. Did he just sound amiable, or dismissive?

Whichever it is, Kosuke does not respond barring a blink of her eyes. He probably could've spared a moment or two to asses her reaction, but Kyoya just looks back down to his plate again. For a time, the only sound is the clinking of silverware on porcelain. And Kosuke thanking the server very kindly.

Internally, Kyoya has switched from chiding himself to wanting to kick himself in the teeth. Besides just being a bumbling idiot, being disinterested is the worst way to come off during the first meeting with your fiancée, and Kyoya is ticking off all the boxes. Mr. Amida probably won't resign the deal for this, but surely he isn't impressed by his future son-in-law's treatment of his daughter thus far.

_To be fair, I don't think I could talk now if I wanted._

For now, at least, the dinner has officially became a business meeting. Mr. Amida and Yoshio only talk to one another without so much as a glance to another soul in the room. For now, at least, there is no one in there but the two of them.

"So now that you've returned to Japan," Yoshio says as their fish course is set before them, "you'll be able to be much more hands-on with this division of Amida Health, yes?"

"Indeed. We have several projects in development right now that require my personal supervision. Our products are very high-demand as of late, so production is at full capacity."

"I've heard you're developing a new product for those with cardiac arrythmia."

"That's one specific goal of it. Our goal is to be able to provide accurate readings by the vein pulse. It'll be a long way until it's completed, but if possible, we'll have it available for consumers. We don't have many products intended for the shelves, but this might be milestone."

"What retailers are you partnered with? Forgive me, my memory is failing me."

Kyoya is fairly certain his father knows very well which retailers Amida Health is partnered with. But this conversation is not about Yoshio, or Ootori Medical, or really anything else besides Amida Health. Yes, this is typical talk for those about to enter a partnership: new products, undergoing projects, retailers.

However, this is also the time for Mr. Amida to just talk about how prosperous and successful his company is, the things that Ootori Medical will be involved in by de facto. Not just as reassurance to Yoshio that this is a good call, but perhaps even a powerplay. Mr. Amida reminding Kyoya's father that Amida Health doesn't need Ootori Medical the same way Ootori Medical needs Amida Health.

It's tempting to speak up on their behalf, at least not make themselves seem so pathetic. Thankfully, Kyoya has always been very good at not giving into temptations.

While their fathers talk, Kyoya takes a look at his fiancée without staring. She has her gaze trained onto her plate, and her shoulders are stiff. He thinks maybe her jaw is working side-to-side. Whether she's intending to or not, she's wearing her discomfort on her sleeve.

He wishes he'd been able to look into her information the way he does with…well, everyone else. At least then he wouldn't have to wonder about her so much. What was the time difference between Mr. Amida coming to her and her agreeing to an arranged marriage? What does she know and not know about their side of the world? Does he even have a single-sentence summary of her life before all this?

While those are all the typical surface-level trivia that he wants to know about most people, Kyoya lets himself think a little further. So far into their first meeting, and he doesn't know much about her as the living human being she is.

 _She seems kind,_ Kyoya thinks. He remembers how she thanked the waiters the first few times they were served, but also of her drinking when Fuyumi was talking to her. _Possibly unprepared. And she seems to wear her heart on her sleeve._

He realizes he's still trying to make deductions based on what he's seen. He should really be making more of an effort to know her—sure, they have the rest of their lives, but still. However, even if the patriarchs weren't dominating the conversation…would he bother?

See, this is why Kyoya needs his brain to get its cogs and wires back in order so it can function the way it used to. His thoughts are full of contradictions, of wanting to know Kosuke better while also not caring, of acknowledging that she's a living soul and being unable to see her as more than a concept.

So while Yoshio and Mr. Amida continue their one-sided conversation, Kyoya ( _without_ zoning out this time) decides that even if he'd never admit to it aloud, he has an unfair bias here.

_You're just unnerved because she's a different case than anyone else. You're already dealing with how you feel about Haruhi and Tamaki. You're stressed out about the company's situation. You have several reasons not to be happy about this situation, but it's not Kosuke. She hasn't done anything wrong._

Looking back to Kosuke again, still looking at her plate but now with a peculiar focus, a hint of guilt settles in his chest…with a bonus layer, for not being guilty before.

She's just a person who hasn't done him any wrong. At the very least, he needs to stop thinking that getting to know her is a hurtle.

While reaching for his water, Kyoya somehow manages to knock a dessert fork off the table. Thankfully, no one seems to notice—least of all Kosuke, who has stopped eating but is still staring intently into the porcelain dish.

Kyoya reaches down to pick it up in as dignified a way as he can manage, and while his head is bent under the table, he sees one detail among the shoes and floorboards:

Kosuke's phone, in her lap, which was probably what she was staring at and not her plate.

 _Don't be upset,_ Kyoya tells himself as he sits right side up again. _You haven't been a shining example of warmth either._

And if he _is_ upset, it's less at Kosuke and more that this is probably the worst way this thing could have ever gone. There's being offended, and then there's— _this._ Texting away on your phone during an important first meeting is universally rude, but Kyoya has never had someone willingly ignore him like this. He's always been so mindful to at least seem respectable in his introductions to people who were absolutely meaningless to him.

The inside of his head has turned into a game of ping-pong, with each idea being countered right back. She shouldn't be on her phone, _but_ Kyoya isn't setting a good example either, _but_ this is an intentional act and not unwillingly spacing out, _but_ spacing out shouldn't be a struggle for him, _but, but, but…_

He once again looks over her for the telltale signs of disdain: furrowed brows, a set jaw, pursed lips. It shouldn't be too hard, considering how expressive she's been so far.

He doesn't find anything besides what he wants to call… _wonder_ as the poultry course comes out. Kyoya doesn't mean to be patronizing and call her "childlike," but there's just innocence in her attention as she takes up a knife and fork and starts to carve.

When Tetsu asks about whether she cooks often, there's a brief glimpse into something else, too, as her eyes light up and her words go from responding to babbling about food and vegetables and her siblings—until she cuts herself short, as if catching herself, and she returns to that more demure state.

 _She's nervous,_ Kyoya thinks, but he already knew that. _Maybe being on her phone was just her trying to relax. People do that._

Just—

Okay.

_Okay._

_You don't hate her._

_You're not even angry at her._

_You're angry at this situation._

_Just be_ kind _to her._

_She obviously doesn't love being here._

On that train of thought, he watches her swirl her spoon in her sorbet—her wonder still there but greatly overshadowed by her discomfort—and for the first time, he wants to know something about her, and not just in the purely factual sense.

In just one moment, she has become one of those magic-eye posters: he thinks he sees something, and he thinks he might know what it is, but he can't be sure. There are too many guesses. She may be a stranger, but all strangers are human beings with their own stories.

_What's yours? What's going on inside your head?_

Suddenly his phone vibrates in his pocket.

Kyoya's spine snaps straight so fast he almost thinks it's audible. Thankfully _(oh-so much),_ no one seems to have noticed, least of all the patriarchs who have returned to their robotic back-and-forth.

He's intent to leave it unanswered until this is over, but now that it's rung, his phone is burning a hole in his pocket. His brothers are fully aware that he's busy, as are the very few Ootori Medical figureheads he has numbers of, so who else is in his contacts but the other Hosts?

 _Please just be one of them asking about wedding plans,_ he thinks, for the first time. Ever.

Two chairs suddenly move back from the table, and Yoshio looks down at all three of his family members in turn. "Mr. Amida and I need to discuss something private for a moment. Excuse us."

For a moment, Kyoya is curious, and then he's offended. He knows very well that they're talking about him and Kosuke, nothing else, and he's never before felt so outraged at being left out of the room. There has never before been a conversation that he was so entitled to listen to.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter, because what does Kyoya possibly need to know or say, anyway? He's marrying the Amida heiress to save the Ootori empire, end of sentence. He just nods to his father as he and Mr. Amida leave with grim faces.

Then his phone vibrates again, and the doors open as the servers come to take their empty sorbet classes, and Kosuke doesn't even say anything, yet her presence alone is another loud noise grinding on his nerves. He's being pulled every way at once, and with an audience watching him, he can't even stop to get a hold of his bearings.

 _Focus. You're getting off-track again,_ Kyoya thinks as he looks to Kosuke again. She's returned to staring a hole into the tablecloth, clearly just as aware that this is their first ever moment without their fathers watching over them. _Talk to her._

He clears his throat, and he swears that Fuyumi's foot moves away from him under the table as if it was two seconds from kicking into his shin. "Will you be attending Ouran this upcoming semester, or later?"

At first Kosuke just blinks at him as if processing what he's just said. Then she smiles, but it's plastered, hardly less stiff than her shoulders. "Hopefully this semester!"

'Hopefully'?

_What kind of answer is that? The semester begins in just over a month…_

"You're not sure yet?"

Immediately after he says it, Kosuke's smile drops clean off her face, and Kyoya clenches his jaw to catch himself. He reminds himself— _again—_ that she's been uprooted recently, so yes, it makes sense for her not to have many plans on her calendar.

His phone vibrates for a third time. He ignores it.

_Don't be so presumptuous. Just give her a chance to explain—_

"Well, I live in Karuizawa right now, so it's going to be difficult attending a school in Tokyo. There's a lot of things we're still working through right now."

… _Karuizawa?_

It's not the familiarity of the town that has Kyoya pausing again—believe him, that nightmare of a vacation with the competition at Misuzu's pension, Haruhi's old friend, the thunderstorm that had them all worried sick…that was going to be one of his worst memories.

Now, however, he has to ask himself: just how _recently_ has Kosuke taken the heiress title? Because to not even be living in the same house as her father, let alone in a little mountain town like Karuizawa, seems odd at best. Wouldn't they have already taken care of that by now?

His phone vibrates again. The servers come with the next course.

If Fuyumi shares his thought process, it doesn't come off in her tone. "Will you be staying with your father, or somewhere else? The dorms, maybe?"

"Oh, I don't think I'll be moving!" Kosuke's hand does an odd little movement, a little flick upwards before sinking back down again. She's not smiling anymore. "I mean, I'm not sure of how I'll be attending, but…"

 _What does she mean, she doesn't_ think _she'll be moving?_ The beginning of something akin to outrage is starting to bubble under his skin, but Kyoya forces it down and wills himself to just ask. "Have you only just now started planning this?"

Now Kosuke looks borderline desperate to get her words out. "All of this is only just now being—"

"'All of this'?"

Fuyumi's heel digs into his shoe again, but Kyoya can hardly even feel it. A very horrifying idea has just occurred to him, and he wants— _needs_ Kosuke to disprove it.

His phone vibrates again. Kosuke swallows.

"All of this change, I mean," she says, but that's not a response that clears anything up. "Becoming the heiress and attending a new college, it's just a huge change in structure and schedule. Not to mention the children…"

She's not whining, but the way she's _speaking,_ it has such clear stress and desperation to it that the outrage is only growing and that idea is solidifying.

"Mr. Amida making you his heir has been _very_ recent."

"Yes."

_Just give her one last chance._

"Are you _prepared_ to be the heiress to company like Amida Health?"

"I—Not right now, no, but we're working very hard on preparing me for taking the role. It's just…We have to plan everything before we can even begin…"

After that, whether or not she says anything else, if Tetsu speaks, if Fuyumi does, it doesn't matter. Kyoya has suddenly gone deaf to all sound except the questions screaming between his ears.

He can understand having to marry an heiress to save the family, he can understand not having a choice, he can understand why this is all so much to take in…

…but he cannot, _for the life of him,_ even begin to grasp how it would _ever_ make sense to marry him to a person who has _no idea what she's doing._

No, she didn't go into that much detail, but Kyoya can fill in the blanks on what she doesn't know. Not knowing when she'll be attending college, or what her living situation will be, that is baseline information. That is the stuff she should know at the very _least,_ but she doesn't. And just looking at her behavior tonight, staring in wonder at everything in the room, she doesn't even seem acquainted with _dining room etiquette._

So if she doesn't know any of _that,_ then she certainly doesn't know anything about Amida Health or Ootori Medical, how a company functions, what she'll have to do as heiress, the people that can make or break her, the decisions she's going to have to make, the responsibilities she's going to have to upkeep, how much weight she'll be carrying for the rest of her life, and least of all: how all of this is going to be compounded with being married to Kyoya.

She's literally just someone off the street. A random girl from Karuizawa, and that's _fine,_ but not when she's in _this_ position. Not when Kyoya is going to be the one marrying her.

His phone vibrates again.

"I'm very sorry, please excuse me."

Kyoya leaves before he can say anything else.

Walking out of the room is like coming up from underwater for air. The hallway is quiet, and graciously empty. It's tempting to just stand there and do nothing for a minute, just to catch his breath, but he has a caller to answer and a clueless fiancée to continue…getting acquainted with.

The missed calls are all from Tamaki, because of course they are, why not throw this in with the rest of his evening?

Kyoya sucks in a deep breath, lets it out, and lifts the phone up to his ear. "Hel—"

" _Kyoya. Ootori."_

His mouth immediately snaps shut. It's definitely Tamaki calling, but since when does Tamaki have a voice as deep and foreboding as thunder?

"Tamaki? What's—"

" _How dare you…How…DARE you…"_

"Tamaki, you're going to have to tell me what I've 'dared' to do, because my memory is failing me."

" _What kind of person doesn't tell their closest, dearest friend THAT HE'S GETTING MARRIED?!"_

Kyoya wonders, if he walked out of the building and let himself be run down by a car on the street, how long it would take anyone to notice.

He just lets his back touch the wall, because really, there's nothing else to do but wait and let Tamaki's infuriated rampage run its course. At least he has an excuse to stay put.

" _Do you have any idea why you were the first person after my own father and Ranka to know that I was planning on proposing to Haruhi? Because you're my BEST FRIEND, Kyoya! You're my dearest friend on the face of this planet, and that's something that I wanted you to know right away! But now? BUT NOW? Not only do I not even know who my best friend is getting married_ to _, I have to wait until his sister—not HIM, but his SISTER—tells me that he's even engaged to begin with!"_

"Very nice, Fuyumi."

" _Don't you talk about your sister in that tone of voice! She's more honest than you are!"_

He tries, quite pathetically: "I never said I _wasn't_ engaged."

" _THIS ISN'T ABOUT LYING!"_ Tamaki's voice somehow rises another octave. Kyoya wonders dreadfully if anyone in the other room can hear. _"This is about LOYALTY! You should have told me immediately! You're about to experience one of the most important things in your entire life and you didn't even let me know! How could you? Did you not think this was important for me to know?"_

" _No one_ was supposed to know until later," sighs Kyoya. "I was under the impression Fuyumi understood that."

" _You could have at least let me know it was a possibility! What would telling me have harmed, huh? Do you think I was going to run to the media and tell them everything?"_

"No, but I can almost promise that you'd make a much bigger deal than anyone else combined."

" _Well, EXCUSE ME for being happy that my best friend is getting married!"_

"You don't sound very happy."

Tamaki hangs up. Then calls again three seconds later.

" _I will never forgive you for this."_

"Would it help if I said I'm sorry?"

" _No!...Yes. No! Look, the day that you finally found someone to spend the rest of your life with was supposed to be a very happy day that I was always looking forward to and I'm sorry but I feel a little deprived of that now BUT I'M NOT MAD AT YOU!"_

Leave it to Tamaki to forget the world that they live in and assume Kyoya has found a true love to sweep off their feet as opposed to a fiancée engaged to purely for business practices.

"I would have told you sooner," Kyoya lies through his teeth. He could've gone the rest of his life without looking Tamaki or Haruhi in the eye and telling them he's engaged. "But with everything that's going on…"

Tamaki does not answer for a moment. Kyoya hears his breath tickle the receiver.

" _Yeah. Yeah…Ugh, I'm so sorry, Kyoya."_ Tamaki's voice has lost all energy. _"All the things you're having to go through and I'm yelling at you like a child. I can't believe myself."_

"It's fine." Kyoya sighs again. "You were going to scream your head off when you found out, anyway."

" _Ha-ha. I'm slapping my knee. Seriously, Kyoya…I can't believe you're actually_ engaged!"

"Why not?" He asks even though he thinks if he hears "engaged" or "married" one more time, he might vomit. "You just said you were looking forward to the day."

" _I know, but still! I didn't think it was going to blindside me like this…_ " Something shuffles on the other line. _"Am I the only person who knows?"_

"It's just you and my family. To everyone else's knowledge, this is just a business meeting."

He hopes he'll pick up the hint, but he doesn't. _"Man, just imagine how everyone's going to react…! Oh, we're going to have to throw a party, Kyoya! Everyone at Ouran will be invited. It'll be just like the old days!"_

"I wasn't aware that I came off as a 'huge party' person."

" _Don't be such a sour puss! You're almost a married man, it's something for everyone to celebrate!"_ Just as he'd predicted, Tamaki's voice picks up speed as he babbles on. _"It's going to be great, Kyoya, you'll see! We can help you just like you've been helping us. We can pick out the venue and the cake, the twins will help with your suit…And just imagine what it'll be like once we're both married! You two and Haruhi and I will get together_ all the time! _It'll be so much fun."_

It's tempting to slide down the wall and to the floor, but Kyoya stops himself. Every word Tamaki is saying is another nail digging under his skin. He knows why Tamaki can be so excited, he gets excited about _everything,_ but all the times Kyoya has been exasperated with his endless energy are nothing compared to now.

Just hearing him talk about himself and Haruhi, Ouran, the twins, it's making Kosuke sound more and more like a puzzle piece that doesn't fit. His life as a Host and his life as an Ootori have always had a little divide between them, and he's always liked it that way. He doesn't want a bridge between them, he doesn't want to imagine this alien shoved into their system. He doesn't want to imagine her standing beside, let alone _talking to,_ Haruhi or the twins or even the 'Zukas.

Just as the cherry on top, it's Tamaki that has to be saying all of this. Someone that, if they were the one Kyoya was engaged to, all the static in his head would disappear. In a different world, listening to Tamaki prattle on about weddings and parties would make him smile fondly and just listen, because sometimes the energy was intoxicating.

Instead…Here they are. Tamaki goes on and on, driving a stake into Kyoya's heart with each word yet smiling all the while. This is the world they live in.

"— _but I'm getting so ahead of myself…Tell me about her!"_

Kyoya manages to ask "Aren't you going to meet her soon enough?" without moaning it like a plea.

" _I'm going to meet her the very second that I can, Kyoya, but I need to hear it from_ YOU! _What is she like? Is she nice? Is she mature? Is she smart?"_

 _Sure, sure, and not in the way she needs to be._ "Yes. She's…" Kyoya pinches the bridge of his nose because Tamaki can't see him anyway. "She's certainly something."

" _Oh, come on. Give me more than that."_

Kyoya has to debate with himself how he's going to talk without sounding like he despises this stranger or that he's pulling anything out of nowhere. He also reminds himself that he _does not_ hate Kosuke, he just _really, really, really_ hates this situation. More so now.

"She's very nice," Kyoya begins. He figures the best way to get through this is to go through the details of the evening one-by-one. "She's a little on the shy side, but that's all. She opens up when she's talking about something she's passionate for. She's very…expressive."

There's another shuffle on the other side for a moment. _"So…you like her?"_

He's so close to going into an explanation on how they've just met and she's a stranger, so no, he isn't clicking his heels about marrying her yet, Tamaki, he's going to need a little time. Instead, he just says, "Yes, I do."

For some reason. Maybe to help him not look bitter. Maybe because lying will be easier. He just sincerely hopes he isn't lying to spite Tamaki in some illogical, absolutely _childish_ way.

Maybe it's to try and keep the conversation shorter, too, but…well. This is Tamaki. The conversation was going to keep going one way or another.

With the answer he'd given, Tamaki voice is so gooey it's practically dripping out of the receiver. _"Kyooooyaaaaa! This is so wonderfuuuuul!"_

"It sure is."

" _Oh, I can't wait to meet her in person. Any girl_ you _like so soon has to be amazing, I'm sure of it! When do you think we can meet? Tomorrow? The day after?"_

"Tamaki—"

" _What about first thing in the morning? I don't think I can wait longer."_

"Tamaki, I'm at our first dinner right now. I think I'm going to have to cut this off now."

This time, the pause is stunned. Then Tamaki's voice is near-appalled. _"Why on earth did you answer the phone, then? Ignore me next time! You can't walk out of such an important meeting! How rude!"_

"I am aware," Kyoya bites back. Except…

Yes, he really did just answer the phone for an excuse to get out of the room. He can forgive Kosuke for the under-the-table texting now; his attempt at being welcoming to his future wife has been abysmal.

"I'll see when you can meet her," Kyoya goes on, and he doesn't even know if he's lying or not, but he certainly doesn't want to arrange any meeting anytime soon. "Goodbye."

" _Oh, Kyoya, wait! At least tell me what her name is."_

"Kosuke Amida. Her father is the head of Amida Health."

Tamaki doesn't respond, and Kyoya says, "Tamaki?"

" _Huh? Oh, uh—I'm sorry! I just know someone with that name, that's all."_ Whatever Tamaki had been thinking about, he seems to have dropped it, as he happily goes on with: _"I wasn't aware Mr. Amida had a daughter!"_

"It's…" Kyoya looks back to the door. He wonders how long it's been. "It's a long story. Mr. Amida and his wife separated, she took Kosuke with her, and she's passed recently, so Mr. Amida offered…I'll tell you everything later. I have to go."

" _Um—!"_ He nearly huffs with annoyance, but Tamaki's voice has an oddly…panicked edge to it. _"I-I'm sorry, last question…What does she…look like? I'm just curious."_

 _I am, too. Why does that matter?_ "She's blonde. Maybe a bit taller than Haruhi; blue eyes. Why?"

Silence.

Then: _"GoodbyeKyoyaI'lltalktoyoulater."_

Tamaki hangs up.

Kyoya is left blinking at his phone. What was that about?

* * *

The evening ends very anticlimactically. Just a few minutes after Kyoya returns—he and the others simply sit in silence, nibbling at the last of their desserts—Yoshio and Mr. Amida do the same.

They all exchange their polite goodbyes to each other, and Kyoya is torn between trying to repair this broken mess of an evening and rejoicing that it's finally over. He can tear himself to pieces for his behavior of the evening now, or wait until he gets home. There's an option.

At the very least, he has to give a good farewell. He puts on the same smile he'd worn on his way in, nods to his future father-in-law, and then to his fiancée: "I'm glad I was finally able to meet you."

Open as ever, Kosuke's face tells him she's got something on her mind. Except now it isn't nervousness or discomfort, and Kyoya must admit that the pressed smile is borderline unnerving. It's wholly disconnected from her eyes, which seem to just look at him without much effort to actually see.

"You, too."

 _Well, that's settled,_ Kyoya's mind scoffs. _She hates you._

Kyoya follows his family out of the room, but once the door closes, he almost double-takes.

All this whining and moaning over this, and at the end of the night, he feels like ate dinner with a mere stranger for no reason at all.

The Shidos and Ootoris are quiet as they exit the building. As they do so, however, they cross paths with a socialite Yoshio is actually familiar with (Kyoya, too, not that it matters) and they begin to talk. Kyoya and the Shidos are far enough ahead to not need to join, but Kyoya is curious as to why Fuyumi keeps walking so determinedly forward.

He gets his answer after they're about ten feet around the corner, when Fuyumi _thwacks_ him with her clutch.

Repeatedly.

" _What—is—wrong—with—you?!"_

Strength has never been one of Fuyumi's shining qualities, so it doesn't hurt very much, but he's still being beaten with a purse. Kyoya holds up an arm to defend himself, but Fuyumi just goes for his middle instead, and he sighs, "Fuyumi, people can see us!"

"Fuyumi, please." Tetsu casts an embarrassed look to the still-steady flow of people walking past them. More than one pair of eyes is watching his wife clobbering her youngest brother. "You don't have to hit him…"

" _Apparently I do!"_ Fuyumi thwacks him on his torso a bit more before finally stopping, flush with anger and throwing a length of hair way from her face. _"It's the only way to get some sense into him!"_

Kyoya pushes his glasses up his nose. "I'm going to ask you to never assault me with a purse outside of a restaurant again."

"Fine. I'll assault you with a purse somewhere else then."

"Where did this bloodthirst come from?"

"Where did _that_ come from?" Fuyumi flings an arm back behind her. "That is your _fiancée_ , Kyoya! That poor girl was shaking all over and you treated her like gum on your shoe!"

"That wasn't my intent."

"You don't—"

Fuyumi snaps her lips shut, then hazards a look around the corner. Their father is still far away, certainly far enough not to hear, but she still keeps her voice deadly quiet as she continues.

"You don't _unintentionally_ storm out of the room," she hisses. Her outrage is so fiery it's bordering on disgust now. "My god, Kyoya, that was the rudest thing I've ever seen anyone do in my life!"

"I wasn't storming out of the room, my phone was—" When the clutch raises up again, Kyoya tries another direction. "I know I shouldn't have done that."

Fuyumi is still staring up at him, appalled, and Tetsu keeps a three-foot distance. Judging by the refusal to look Kyoya in the eyes, he does agree with his wife to some extent. Which is completely fair, because Kyoya agrees with her to full extent.

Fuyumi's hand is suddenly touching his forehead and cheek, and her frown only deepens when he tilts his head away.

"Seriously, Kyoya…Are you sick? You've never acted like this a day in your life. This isn't like you at all."

"I know." Kyoya pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a breath. He thought getting out of the room would make the static quiet down a bit. "I honestly can't believe myself."

His sister's gaze softens as she looks at him up and down, crossing her arms over her chest. "Is there something going on that we need to know about?"

"No. It's just everything that's been happening recently. But that's no excuse, I can't behave like this."

Her eyes narrow on him just so, but just as she opens her mouth to speak, Yoshio returns.

All three of them straighten their spines, but Yoshio doesn't look at them, readjusting his cufflinks as he comes to the curb. Only then does he turn to them, and he sets his eyes on Fuyumi first.

"I'll see you two soon," he says. Kyoya doesn't doubt he has a comment or two about her unexpected accompaniment the evening, but again: he's always had a soft spot for his only daughter.

Fuyumi hesitates, looking back to her brother for a long moment, but in the end she takes her husband's hand and walks with him down the sidewalk. Funnily enough, Kyoya immediately misses her.

Doubly so because now Yoshio's attention is now on him. It seems that the only thing keeping his anger from burning bright is tiredness: his gaze on his youngest son is nothing less than exasperated.

"My behavior tonight was unacceptable," Kyoya says first. "It won't happen again."

"I should hope not," his father scoffs bitterly. He pinches the edge of his glasses for a moment, jaw clenched. "I can't ask you to be delighted about this, but I will _demand_ that you mind your manners. You're usually so mindful of them I'm shocked to even be reminding you."

Kyoya swallows and responds, "Yes, Father." It's the only correct response.

Yoshio swallows, too, and waits until the limousine pulls up before adding, "You don't have to love her, Kyoya, but you have to play nice. At least go and see her off. You can make up for your rudeness for the rest of your life, but start now."

He bends through the door before Kyoya can say anything in response. But what else would he have said besides, "Yes, Father?"

So in conclusion, this night has been an absolute, unmitigated train wreck.

The longer he stands on the curb by himself, the sicker Kyoya feels, because…What _was_ that?

Was he _possessed?_ Did he have brain damage? Was that entire dinner an out-of-body experience? Because if Kyoya could travel back in time, he'd beat the hour-younger version of himself to a bloody pulp.

He was rude, and dismissive, and above all: _disrespectful._ He walked out of the room! He might as well have slapped his fiancée across the face while he was at it.

He was a raging hypocrite. He had been so factual about how much his behavior mattered, not just for his image but for his entire family's, and had been appalled that he was marrying a woman who had no idea of such a thing…and then he did that.

Kyoya can't do it right now because he's in public, but the second he is in the privacy of his house, he's going to punch himself as hard as he can.

All the whining and fussing _stops now._ If he has to condition himself to not think of Haruhi or Tamaki at all, he'll find a way. There's a countless number of people reliant on this marriage working—he can't let them all down because he can't stop pouting.

He carves his father's words into his brain. He has to make it up to Kosuke. He'll _grovel_ if he has to. He has to prove to her that he's not the disrespectful ass he's made himself out to be.

He'll wait for her to come out to apologize. That's normal for these kinds of meetings; the engaged usually meet in private before they leave for the evening. That's what Fuyumi and Tetsu did, and they had such an instant spark they took almost an hour—Yoshio practically had to drag her away. That's also what he and Amaya did, and Kyoya tried to set records for how fast they could be.

While he waits for Kosuke, he runs over what he's going to say and the explanation he's going to give.

…Thirty minutes later, however, Kyoya is still standing alone and has to come to a sobering conclusion:

Kosuke has already left.

Just like when he noticed her on her phone, he's conflicted.

On the one hand, this is _also_ pretty rude. Maybe not as disrespectful of walking out of the room to answer a phone call, but "No, I'm actually not interested in talking to my fiancé in private" is not a polite sentiment. If Kyoya did this, Fuyumi would beat him with her clutch until he was black and blue.

On the other hand…Touché? He'd been dismissive at best and aggressive at worst to her all evening. He wouldn't want to have a private chat with himself, either.

Surely and her father had left together, however, and as professional a man as Mr. Amida was, Kyoya is pretty sure he would have insisted for her to meet with him. His only conclusion is that either Mr. Amida _himself_ was so appalled by his behavior he didn't hold his daughter to the norm, or Kosuke had firmly declined doing so. Neither was good.

Now the only thing he can do is go home. He can't see the future, but he's fairly certain he won't be sleeping tonight.


	15. The Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kosuke uproots her old life to make way for the new one.

Kosuke has had to swallow hard pills before. They have been coming one after another for months now. Since the moment Shigeo walked through the doorway, she's had a whole handful of pills to swallow all at once. One is that she's engaged, another is that she'll be the heir to a gargantuan technology company, another is that her whole life will be uprooted, and on and on.

The latest pill to swallow was that her future lifelong partner dislikes her. There's no other conclusion to come to, and though she might not have a game plan thus far, she's already decided that she's going to remedy that. Whether she's offended or upset or angry, she doesn't know, and it doesn't matter.

She has managed to choke them down—not prettily, with a lot of coughing, but she has managed. Though she has lately spent most nights staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom instead of actually sleeping, she hasn't spiraled out of control yet. If nothing else, she has control over her own mind.

She cannot control the children's, however. She can choke down pills; they can't.

With already so much to give them, it's just an extra hurtle that despite there only being so few years between Hitsuji and Minami, they function on entirely different levels. Without Kosuke, Hitsuji is at the mercy of the world. He has no idea what is going on until it is spelled out to him in short words. Minami, however, is at that "scientist" age. She observes things and she asks questions, and she can no longer be brushed off so easily.

Kosuke fears for them in different ways. Hitsuji has already been struck with the blow of losing both his parents at such a tiny age. He needs stability, and moving from their lifelong home and introducing strangers into his life might ruin him. It's not that Minami doesn't need stability, but she has a much greater sense of self than her brother. Hitsuji has _a_ world and Minami has _her_ world. She has _her_ home and _her_ friends and _her_ life.

This was never going to be as easy as a sit-down talk. Kosuke realizes pretty quickly that she isn't going to be able to tell them together, they are each going to be their own hurtle.

So, while focusing on this one problem in the mountain of all her _other_ problems, Kosuke decides that she's going to talk to her sister first. Hitsuji, she thinks, will take longer to explain things to. With Minami, however, she is expecting kickback.

It doesn't _fully_ go as she expects, but it does begin as she does, with questions.

"We're moving in with your dad?"

Kosuke nods, tucking back the hair blowing into her face. They're sitting out in their little backyard, with Hitsuji blissfully unaware and unawake upstairs. It is the first moment Kosuke found of getting her sister by herself and uninterrupted.

With the absolute _tidal wave_ of information Kosuke just hit her with, it was only a turn of the wheel as to which question would come first. She fears she's already given her far too much, but she just doesn't know what else to do.

"Yeah. He lives in Tokyo. So he's not that far away, but…We're still going to need to move."

She's waiting for Minami to lose it at any second now, scream that no, she doesn't want to go, this is her home, what about all her friends? She hasn't even said any of those things yet, and already Kosuke's insides feel like they're made of stone.

"I thought your dad was dead?"

Kosuke blinks. "Wh—No. Why'd you think that?"

"Because he wasn't here," exclaims Minami, like it is a very obvious answer. "Because he wasn't married to Mommy anymore!"

She'd normally accept this, but now she asks, "Minami, do you know what a divorce is?"

"It's when two people don't want to be married anymore so they stop."

"Right. That's what happened with my dad and Mom. They got divorced."

"Why?"

Kosuke brushes another strand of hair from her face. Nothing is more troubling to a child than an adult that doesn't know something.

"I don't know," she finally answers. Minami's brow furrows tighter still. "I guess they just stopped loving each other. Sometimes that happens."

Minami goes quiet once again. _Please don't let this turn into a multilayer conversation,_ Kosuke begs in her mind. _I don't have the strength to discuss the many causes of divorce on top of everything else._

"But why wasn't he around?" she asks. "Hana's mommy and daddy are divorced and they see her all the time!"

"He, uh—" Kosuke makes a mental note to make a comprehensive checklist of all the things she and her parents may or may not have explained to the children. 'Parents who aren't dead but aren't in their children's lives' hadn't been broached yet. "He didn't know about me. He didn't know Mommy had me."

Minami's face scrunches into a knot. "Huh?"

 _Yeah, nice going there, Einstein._ The "birds and the bees" talk wasn't just on the checklist. It was far, far on the horizon, the dreadful storm that Kosuke knew she was going to have to face one day but was too scared to stop running from.

"I mean—uh. It—it has to do with how babies are made, hon. You know how babies grow in their mommies' bellies—" Kosuke has cupped her hands around her midsection before she stops herself. "He just didn't know."

Finally Minami accepts this, but only to keep thinking about literally everything else. The concept of her sister's father was one thing, now there were ten other things to worry about. First and foremost, the fact that she was about to lose her home to go live with a stranger.

"Do we…" Her voice drops to a mumble. "Do we _have_ to go live with him?"

Kosuke's already-fractured heart breaks just a little bit more. She does _not_ feel like a hero here. She feels like a parent about to do an Unforgettable Thing—the type of thing that maybe doesn't ruin their relationship, but the thing that keeps with a kid forever, the thing that makes a kid think, "I love you a lot, but I can never forget how you did X to me."

"I need to be close to him so we can work together, and I can't let you guys live here by yourselves."

"We could get a babysitter…"

"Not for that long," Kosuke gets exactly one-half of a laugh out before stopping herself cold. It came from hysteria, but from the way Minami's eyes go down to the grass, she's just scoffed in her little sister's face. "I—I know it sounds really scary, but it won't be that bad."

Her little sister looks up at her again, her eyes just a little more watery than they were before. She isn't heartbroken just yet; she's scared. "Are we going to come back?"

"Of course we are!" Kosuke runs a hand through Minami's curls, carefully dodging the knots. "We won't be able to every day, but maybe on the weekends. And we can come back on vacations. We can do stuff so you can still talk to your friends, and I'm sure you can still come to parties and all that."

There is a little relief in that, apparently, but Minami still sniffles. "Where does he live?"

"Tokyo," Kosuke repeats.

A little more relief. Kosuke was stupid not to downplay it more. Children think in extremes, she knows, so she can't blame Minami for instantly deciding they were about to move halfway across the world and never come home again.

"Is it…Is it a good house?"

Kosuke nods. She's careful not to sigh in relief just yet. "I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it is. I bet it's _super_ big and it has a lot of rooms. Maybe you can even get your own! And Haruhi lives in Tokyo, so we can see her all the time, too."

What follows is a stretch of silence only disrupted by the light breeze. Minami doesn't say anything, and Kosuke doesn't push any words, comfort or otherwise. At the very least, she can remember how her mind worked at that age. Comfort was good, yes, but too much of it was stifling. Too much of it made her want to run away.

_There was no way to win this and I already feel like I lost._

Sometimes Kosuke gives herself little slivers of…not credit, but leeway. That sometimes—it was _extremely rare,_ but _sometimes_ —it wasn't solely her fault when things went wrong. There was no way to tell Minami any of this and have her come out of the conversation with a beaming smile.

Still, she isn't expecting her sister to say, "Okay."

Kosuke is left blinking again. "'Okay'?"

"I'm okay with it," Minami chirps with no smile. She stands up to her feet and brushes off her skirt. "We can go. When are we leaving?"

"Um—" Kosuke coughs. "We kind of need to get going tomorrow. So we're going to start packing today, but just the stuff we need…I'm going to come back and get more stuff later…"

Her voice trails off into a mumble by the end, because she's done so much bracing and fretting for nothing more than "Okay." The worry is still pent-up inside of her. But Minami is just blinking down at her and listening.

"Should I start packing now?" she asks.

"…Sure."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Minami leaves. She walks back into the house and shuts the door politely behind her.

Kosuke is left to just dumbly blink into space by herself. She's lagging like an old computer again.

"Okay." Then she finally catches back up with reality. "Not okay!"

She runs back into the house, up the stairs, and into Minami's room in probably her new record. Minami is keeping to her word, at least. She has her polka-dot travel bag open on her bed and her drawers open. She gives Kosuke a blinking look as she zips into the room, but then she just goes about her business.

"Minami, aren't you upset?" asks Kosuke. "I mean—you're not mad, or anything?"

"No," Minami answers as she packs an armful of shirts into her bag.

Literally _packs,_ and Kosuke steps forward to fold them before her little sister continues stuffing her luggage like a Thanksgiving turkey. Minami decides to just transfer things from the drawers to the bed.

"You know," Kosuke goes on while she burrito-rolls as much as she can. They're going to need every bag they have. "It's okay to tell me if you're upset. I mean, I know moving into a new house can be kind of scary."

"I'm not upset. And I'm not scared."

"Yeah, but—"

"Do you want me to be?"

"Wh—No."

Minami shrugs. They're walking in circles. "Okay."

So…that's the end of a conversation about the permanent change to their way of life. Minami keeps giving her clothes to pack into her bags. For when they move. Into their new house.

Kosuke rubs the back of her neck and sighs. "Okay…"

* * *

One child down (?), another child to go.

Minami's acceptance doesn't change, and she's right: Kosuke doesn't _want her_ to be upset, so she accepts the acceptance. She supposes she isn't as knowledgeable on the mental workings of children after all.

They keep packing their clothes and belongings until the bottom floor of the house is getting crammed with their luggage. A few times Kosuke is again hit with the reminder that they're about to move out of her home of more than ten years and onto what might as well be another planet, but she stifles down any shockwaves. She really needs to get over it.

Hitsuji can't help with the move that much, but he certainly notices all the hubbub. He asks right as Kosuke approaches him to explain.

"A new house?"

"Mm-hm. With my dad."

Hitsuji stops with the superhero toy he has in his hands. Confusion is etched into every feature on his little face. "Daddy?"

A bullet shoots through Kosuke's chest, but she holds back from showing any pain. "No, _my_ dad."

Hitsuji goes quiet and fiddles with his superhero toy some more. He was told a few times that Marti was _technically_ only his father and Kosuke's stepfather, but…come on. You don't even say _technically_ to a child. Minami knows absolutely nothing about where babies come from, and she still somehow knows more than Hitsuji. She was there when Emiko told him that he "came out of her belly", and she's never seen anyone of any age look so gobsmacked.

Kosuke can't explain all this to him right now, however. She hasn't even discussed with Shigeo how he's going to— _deal_ with the children, which is another item on the Okay Kosuke This Is Getting Ridiculous You Need to Talk About These Things list.

"We won't be around here much anymore." Kosuke watches him carefully. His eyes are still on his hands. "But we're still going to visit."

"Is it big?"

"I bet so."

"How big?"

"Big."

Hitsuji points to the everything around them. "Bigger than our house?"

"I think so!"

He drops the toy entirely, blinking up at her with his wide brown eyes. "We're gonna live there?!"

She isn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned with his excitement. Maybe she doesn't want the children to be upset, but she doesn't want their "okay"-ness to come from a misconception. She doesn't want Hitsuji to be happy now only for the sadness to hit him like a freight train later. "Uh-huh. As soon as we get everything packed."

"I'll help, I'll help!"

Kosuke gives up on trying to plan kids. They are unplannable. Such a drastic change in their lives, and all she gets is "okay" and running around the house trying to find a way to help it go faster. Though she worries for a bit if they are upset after all, she stuffs the thought away. The children are brutally honest, and they don't hold back tears. If this was devastating them, she'd know it.

Now, there is the _next_ problem to deal with: the fact that Kosuke is getting married. Soon. To someone the children have never met.

It's not a bridge she's ready to cross yet, because on top of being the straw to break the camel's back, she can't think of a single way to explain it without destroying the way the children understand the world. Blue is the color of the sky, the cow goes "moo", marriage is when two people love each other and want to be together forever! So she can't say she's getting married to someone she doesn't love. The idea of explaining what an arranged marriage and how it's okay, actually, is stuffed far, far, far back into the abyss of her mind in a hazardous material container labeled _Don't._

She'll figure something out. She just wishes she knew how much time she had to do so, though. She doesn't even know when the children are going to meet Kyoya. She can just cross her fingers and wish upon a star that it isn't as cardboard-stiff as the first meeting.

* * *

It takes an entire day and well into the night of full-speed packing to get everything together for the move. Kosuke has tried to strike a balance between the things they'll need and as much as they can manage in the first trip. In the end, the bottom floor of the house is packed to the gills with boxes and bags.

In the very little time she'd had in-between, Kosuke had made all the necessary steps to get them relocated. She'll have to make a whole lot of address changes on papers and documents in the future still. She'll have to explain to the children's schools that they will not be in attendance this year after all despite classes starting next week.

Now, as for what school they _will_ be attending…

This whole thing is a disaster.

Kosuke is starting to feel the way her parents probably felt every time they were about to leave the house for a trip. Double-checking every nook and cranny, checking the clock every few minutes. And on top of that, she's still keeping one eye on the kids at all times. Hitsuji is still bouncing off the walls in excitement. Minami seems so normal, even back to cracking smiles and laughing, that Kosuke's concern only triples.

She doesn't feel like she's diving headfirst into anything; she feels like she was shoved in and is floundering to break the surface again. The to-do list in her brain is miles long, she's barely keeping track of all three of them, and she _still_ hasn't come to terms with the—everything that's happening.

But it's fine. It's good. It's alright. It's fine. Cool. Totally alright. Fine. Good. Fine, fine, fine.

At a quarter past ten, her phone rings as she's lugging duffel bags packed with Hitsuji's clothes across the floor.

" _The movers should be there very soon,"_ Shigeo tells her without so much as a hello. _"Do you have everything ready to go?"_

"Yeah. Just—hang on." She's wrapped the straps of the bags across her chest in a brace tight enough to make a boa constrictor envious. She can't breathe anymore. "Just—I have some concerns."

" _Now?"_

"Yes, now. I'm thinking we rushed into this too fast."

The sigh makes the speaker ruffle. _"I don't have the time or patience to give another pep-talk to you about the benefits of this—"_

"No," Kosuke snaps. It would've had more fire to it if she wasn't trying to untangle herself from her self-made web. "I mean logistics-wise. We haven't talked about what we're doing with the kids, or Ouran, or _anything—"_

" _I'm taking care of all that. Just worry about getting over here."_

He hangs up.

Kosuke has some concerns.

Before she can worry too long—or, longer, anyway—there's a knock at the door at long last. Kosuke takes a breath and steels herself. All they have to do now is ride over to Tokyo, and then they can move on from there. This is a process.

* * *

In the end, the truck that comes is far, far bigger than what was ever necessary for what they have. The bags and boxes just barely take up the front end of it, but better safe than sorry, Kosuke guesses. She's just glad they're doing this early in the morning, when most people have already left for their jobs and the streets are close to empty. The last thing she needs is to come up with a cover story for her neighbors.

If the children have any more reason to worry, it all vanishes out the window when they see the limousine. Yes, they are real, after all! And they get to ride in one! The two of them are bouncing off the walls as soon as the door closes, mystified by the (empty) wine coolers and long leather seats. Kosuke lets them run around a few times before they get in motion.

The spectacle itself entertains them for a good half-hour before they get bored, but that's fine. They can smear their coloring books with crayons and play with their dolls. If they're distracted, they can't have second thoughts, right?

It takes leaving Karuizawa proper for the nervousness to swell again. Kosuke wishes she had someone to talk to, but…no dice. She's left to stare down at her phone screen in quiet consideration.

 _She's probably just busy,_ Kosuke tells herself. _Honestly, if she texted YOU first, you probably wouldn't have time now, either…_

She last sent Haruhi a message two days ago, and she has yet to get a response. It's another thing that Kosuke more or less forces herself not to worry about. Forty-eight hours with no text message does not mean they are over and done with. She's being a worrywart, and an unfair one at that.

 _You're just worried because of what happened with Okina._ She turns her phone screen off, takes a breath. _Stop projecting. That was your fault, anyway._

It's not a defense, but Kosuke has to admit that it's times like this when she misses high school days, where everyone was just kinda-sorta friends with each other and she could say she knew too many people to count. Now it's just Haruhi, Tamaki, and Ranka, and those are three faces she only sees so often.

For now. Her life is about to get chock-full of unfamiliar faces.

* * *

It takes a few hours to get to Tokyo. The children get restless. Their legs start to cramp. Kosuke spends most of the ride staring up at the ceiling of the limousine and processing.

Hitsuji is officially insatiable.

"Is there a pool?"

"Maybe."

"How many rooms are there?"

"I'm not sure; probably a couple."

"Is the yard really big?"

"I haven't seen it."

"Are there—?"

"Hitsuji. Buddy." Kosuke _boops_ him on the nose, smiles. "I've never been here. I don't know."

"Okay." Hitsuji settles back into his seat, picks up his dinosaur toy again, flicks the arm up and down. He lasts a good…five seconds? "How tall is it?"

Luckily Kosuke doesn't have to bite back a beleaguered sigh. The privacy screen separating them from the driver rolls down just enough for him to call back, "We're here."

It's not just the kids that press their faces against the glass to get a look outside. They don't see the actual house just yet. The first thing they see is a stone wall stretching out on either side, stopped only by a wrought iron fence that the limo is currently halted in front of. A very large, very tall iron fence that has the letter A in the bars.

 _I don't know whether to be impressed or scared,_ thinks Kosuke.

The limousine starts rolling forward again, and Kosuke realizes she should probably start cleaning up before they get out. The children are too bouncy to help. She grabs handfuls of crayons and dropped doll dresses in a scurry, all while reminding herself to take deep breaths.

"Kosuke," Minami rushes her. "Kosuke, Kosuke, you'll miss it!"

"It's not going anywhere," she replies, but as soon as the limousine stops and someone pulls open the door, Minami literally climbs over her to follow Hitsuji out. Kosuke can only barely bite back a yelp as her sister's heel stabs into her back. _"OOF."_

Minami doesn't care about any spinal damage she's caused. She's too busy screaming her name over and over. _"Kosuke, Kosuke, Kosuke, Kosuke, Kosuke, Kosuke, get out, look-look-look!"_

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Kosuke slings the still-open backpack of toys across her shoulder and scrambles out just to get some calm again. Her foot catches and she nearly faceplants onto asphalt. "I'm looking, I'm loooo _ooooooking…"_

Oh, she's looking. She can't stop looking. There's nowhere to turn her eyes where she isn't looking, it's consuming her peripherals.

 _House,_ her near-comatose brain tells her. _Mansion. Big mansion._

Big, big, big, big, _big_ mansion. Just—

Holy hell.

The spectacle that's dwarfing Kosuke and _literally_ blocking out the sun is nothing short of a castle. Two stories, three stories, it doesn't matter, it looks like a skyscraper. Kosuke sees pristine sand-colored brick detailed in white stonework, the very front bearing a carved flower looking to be crafted by Michelangelo himself.

Kosuke sees windows taller than double herself, topped by a shingled black roof with those…spiky metal things that go on castles. It's _literally_ a castle. On either end—they're both _far away_ from them—the corners are made of towers with cone-shaped tops and marble balconies. They look like fairytale princesses live in them.

There are rose bushes without so much as a leaf out of place, and behind them is a fountain huge enough to swim in, the centerpiece a cluster of cherubs pouring sparkling water from vases. And it… _keeps_ going.

The place is a different planet in and of itself. Kosuke doesn't even think she's in Japan anymore. Sometimes, when she was a child…Actually, no, maybe _last_ week, she would see a house _a third_ this size and just fantasize for two seconds what a dream it would be to live in there.

Except this isn't a dream, it's real. She's going from looking at the moon to _landing_ on the moon. She's about to walk through the doors and _live_ in this house.

And she's _terrified._

Minami and Hitsuji have started their full-blown, jumping-on-their-feet jubilation while their older sister has unease building up in her belly. There is way too much all at once, she needs everything to just slow down for two seconds.

 _There are people in this world who are dying,_ she chides herself. Boo-hoo, she gets to live in a big house now.

The truck door shutters open and the movers start dragging out their luggage. The children are tugging on invisible leashes at this point, only holding themselves back as the door opens and a woman steps out. She's middle-aged, a little gray-looking, with the sort of face that you can tell doesn't smile often.

"Miss Amida," she says, but that's all the greeting she gives before she's handing over a stack of papers to Kosuke. She fumbles to catch them in time. The top sheet is a layout of the mansion, written out in all its intimidating detail. "This is everything Mr. Amida has instructed me to give you. On top you'll find the layout of the estate. The rooms that are filled in are off-limits."

"Okay…Um, why—?"

"Follow me, please."

The woman turns on her heel and heads back inside. Kosuke follows, and the children follow her, vibrating with excitement.

The…foyer? This is a foyer, isn't it? Is a palace in and of itself. A chandelier worth more than every yen they have in the bank shimmers high above their heads. Two staircases sweep up to balconies offering only glimpses of what else is to come. There are so many details to take in, from the marble of the pillars to the intricate golden handrails of the stairs. Their footsteps ring off the snowy tiles.

"The cleaning staff will be here every weekday starting at six in the morning and leaving at three in the evening. The lower east section is cleaned on Monday, the upper east Tuesday, the lower west Wednesday, the upper west Thursday, and other areas Friday."

The woman's hands flit left to right and left again, Kosuke and the children's heads turning to watch like spectators of a tennis match. Kosuke finally manages to stop her just long enough to ask, "What do you mean by 'other areas'?"

"The grand ballroom, the wine cellar, and the pool. The kitchen and dining room are tended to on a daily basis. Speaking of…"

The woman turns and beckons them once again, down the east section. The children flit after her. Kosuke stumbles.

The dining room feels to be a mile long. The sleek table is the size of a pool in and of itself. There are so many chairs it feels more like a meeting room than anything else. Not to mention every seat already has a setting of plates and silverware that could pay someone's entire college tuition…

"The cooks will arrive at six every morning and will serve breakfast at eight sharp, lunch at twelve sharp, and dinner at six sharp. If there are days you will not be requiring their present, a twenty-four hour notice is requested. If there are any allergies or foods you otherwise do not want to be served, please let us know immediately. Every Sunday morning you will be given the week's menu to approve. Any questions? No? Follow me."

While they walk, Kosuke's brain is going into overdrive just to listen to the woman and glimpse through all the sheets and comprehend the everything that's happening. She just barely manages to keep Hitsuji from faceplanting on the stairs as they trek their way up.

The upper hallway is much the same as the lower one, with pristine carpets and pristine wallpaper and oh Kosuke is never going to get used to this in a million years. The hallway alone has more square footage than their entire restaurant.

The woman stops in front of the first door they come to. "This will be the children's room."

Minami and Hitsuji scream. Kosuke flinches. The woman doesn't.

Snowy carpet, chandelier, huge windows draped in gold curtains, two beds with their own mountains of pillows and spreads softer than clouds, enough floor space to run and toss and tumble. True, there aren't any vibrant colors or fun toys or stuffed animals, but that doesn't matter. The place is big and the beds are big enough to be trampolines. That's all the kids care about and are currently doing.

"This is our room?!" screams Minami, breathless as she bounces up and down on the comforter while her sister has a panic attack about her shoes touching the fabric. "This is our room?! Our room?!"

"Our room, our room, our room," Hitsuji parrots. He sounds possessed with joy.

"There are several bedrooms in the mansion, so if they'd rather have their own, that can be arranged." Kosuke doesn't get to tell her that no, it's probably fine. The woman plows right on. "Each bedroom is wired to the mansion's telephone system, so if you need to call from another room, just use that. Each room also has their own thermostat—"

Minami grows bored of all the long words and stops bouncing to look around at the walls and ask, "Do we get a TV?"

Kosuke sighs, "Minami," but she's not sure whether she's chiding her sister for interrupting or for somehow wanting _more._

Either way, she doesn't get to continue. The woman raises a brow and pulls out her phone. "Would you like a TV for them?"

"Oh, no, no, that isn't necessary."

("Awwww…" the children whine.)

"I'll get them one."

("Yaaaaay!" the children cheer.)

"Would you like one, too?"

"I—I don't really watch TV much at all."

"So yes, then."

Kosuke blinks. Narrows her eyes.

"As I was saying, each room also has its own bathroom."

Minami gasps hard enough to surely hurt her lungs and exclaims, "Hitsuji, the bathroom!" The two scramble over to the door at the other side of the room. Kosuke doesn't see it, but judging by the ear-shattering screams that erupt from within, the bathtub is basically a swimming pool.

The woman is unfazed. "The bedsheets will be changed every day when the room is vacant. Would you prefer cotton, silk, or satin?"

"Cotton, silk, or satin what?"

"Cotton, silk, or satin bedsheets."

"Satin _bedsheets?!"_

"Satin it is, then."

"No, that's not what I—"

"Ma'am, I have a schedule to stick to, and I'm afraid I won't be able to stick to it with further interruption." The woman sighs and levels her with a look. Kosuke cannot decide whether this is a mean person or not. "I'm just going to tell you everything you need to know now. Is that alright?"

Kosuke mentally slaps herself. The kids are allowed to ooh and ahh over everything, she isn't. She also has to stop her eyes from bugging out of her skull at every tiny thing, or they'll pop right out of her skull. _Be calm for two seconds._ "That's alright."

"Good."

The woman takes a deep breath and continues:

"The only area of the house off-limits to anyone but Mr. Shigeo is his own personal office and a bedroom on the west side that is marked on the layout. The kitchen and the pool area are open to both you and the children, but the children are not to be there without your or someone else's supervision for safety purposes. The children are not to be in the wine cellar for any reason at any time. The pantry and freezer will be stocked with the food the kitchen staff will prepare for mealtimes, but you are also allowed to store your own food items in there as well. The kitchen is open to you at all hours, but it's suggested you remain out of the way of the staff while they are preparing meals, which will be between six and eight, ten and twelve, and four and six. If there are food and beverages you would like to be in supply of, whether for meals or snacks, simply tell one of the kitchen staff and it will be taken care of. The pool area is downstairs; you'll find the staircases there on either side of the lower halls or outside from the back patio. It is open to you at all hours, but again, the children are not allowed there by themselves. The pool's temperature can be adjusted to your suiting, though there is a hot tub, as well. The children are not allowed within the hot tub, supervised or otherwise. The same goes for the sauna, also to be found downstairs. When using the hot tub and sauna, please be mindful of the time and temperature so as to avoid dizziness, burns, and other health issues. There will be no lifeguard, so please use the pool area with caution and refrain from dangerous activities like running around the perimeter. The pool area, as well as other rooms in the mansion, is equipped with a phone to contact other areas or emergency services. The wine cellar is also downstairs and can be accessed through the pool area. It is to my understanding that you are currently nineteen years old and thus under Japan's legal drinking age, so until your next birthday, you will not be allowed to take or drink any wines, champagnes, or other alcoholic beverages within the cellar. You are, however, allowed to use the patio outside the cellar to your liking. The grand ballroom is in the middle of the mansion on the lower story, and the floor is waxed every Friday. Each Thursday groundskeepers will be on site to tend to the hedges, bushes, flowers, and lawns. During the first week of each month the floors of the mansion will be waxed and cleaned in the same pattern as the weekly schedule. You will be notified if any other staff will be present outside of their normal hours. At seven o'clock the kitchen staff will have cleaned the kitchen and the mansion will be vacant for the rest of the evening. You have been provided a list of phone numbers for all staff and their occupations if you require them during a time they are not in attendance. Included in that list is the number for a chauffeur, who will require an hour's notice before arrival. There are two chauffeurs who work on rotation throughout the week. As for rules of conduct: it is expected that during your stay here you will behave properly and civilly with respect to the property. There are to be no major changes to any of the furniture or decorations of the mansion, layout or otherwise, unless they have been approved by Mr. Shigeo beforehand. No aspect of the property will be damaged or defaced in any way. You are of course allowed to decorate your bedroom as you please, with the exemption of painting the walls, changing the carpet, or other any extreme alterations that could be potentially irreversible. If you desire any furniture to be moved into your bedroom that you need assistance with, you will find the number of the same movers who have helped you arrive today. Mr. Amida would like to note that he understands that human error can occur, but if extraneous damage is done to any area of the house, you may have further access to said area restricted if not prohibited. You are, of course, strictly forbidden from any unlawful activities inside the mansion, such as possession of illegal substances or, again, alcoholic beverages while you are still underage. Doing so will result in swift eviction from the premises. You are allowed company over any day of the week, though parties of more than five people will require admission by Mr. Amida. Within your documents you will find information of the mansion, including its address, for use of delivery or other purposes. At the end of the road leading into the premises is a gate that is opened and closed via a security code, also to be found within the documents provided. You are under no circumstances allowed to give this security code to any other parties. For security purposes, there is a surveillance system that extends from the gate to the exterior of the mansion. Only Mr. Amida and—should such an event present itself—legal authorities have access to said surveillance system. For your privacy, there is no surveillance within the walls of the mansion proper. You should understand that in the event that that any emergency services are called to the premises, Mr. Amida will be notified immediately. You will also be notified if you are absent. Should you have any personal belongings that you require storage for, the attic of the eastern wing is at your disposal. The staircase to said attic can be found at the end of the hall. The mansion does not have any medical personnel in its staff, but simple medical supplies such as over-the-counter medicines, syrups, and tools can be found within a medicine cabinet within the kitchen. You are allowed to keep your own personal medical supplies in your bedroom, but again, illegal substances will result in swift eviction. Do you understand?"

She—

Um.

"Ms. Amida?"

Kosuke's mouth opens on autopilot. "Present."

The woman only sighs and pushes her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. Kosuke hasn't intended to aggrieve the woman, but… _but…_

"All of this information can be found in your documents." _Then why did you even—?_ "Mr. Amida is in his office in the western wing. He would like to see you as soon as possible."

Kosuke's eyes at once flit over to the children, as if expecting them to be in danger. They have returned to the beds to tear off the blankets and marvel and the cloudlike softness of the mattresses. She doesn't know why she's so unnerved at the realization that her estranged father and her siblings are under the same room.

 _Delayed reaction, much? Better get used to it._ Kosuke nods a bit shakily. "Of course."

The woman turns to lead her away, and Kosuke turns back to call, "I'm going to be back soon. Stay here and behave!"

"We will," the children chorus back.

* * *

Shigeo's office is dead at the end of the hallway. Kosuke has no idea—she knows it is _so stupid—_ but she swears she'd have felt less nervous if it was to the side. It's just some dumb, human response. It makes it look more forboding.

_Oh my—_

_It is a DOOR, you dumb child._

Again, Kosuke mentally slaps herself so hard her cheeks almost hurt from it. Even Alice wasn't so dumbstruck-emphasis-on-the-dumb when she came to Wonderland.

The woman stops in front of the door to nod at her one last time before pushing the door open. "Ms. Amida, sir."

The office is exactly what she should've expected. Huge windows with thick velvet curtains let the sunlight spill into the room, rendering the chandelier all but useless. Two mammoth bookshelves fill the far wall and she's pretty confident the gold-trimmed books are just for decoration. The cherry on top is, of course, the giant oak desk in the middle.

On the other side, Shigeo is leaning over a cluster of papers, a pair of reading glasses at the edge of his nose. It makes his face look even older, though Kosuke doesn't know how old he is in the first place. She actually finds herself a little relieved that he's sitting down working; if he'd been standing in front of the window with his hands behind his back it would've just solidified him being a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

Shigeo only briefly looks up before saying, "That'll be all."

The woman leaves and shuts the door behind Kosuke. Finally leaving her and Shigeo alone for the first time since that poor excuse of a first meeting with the Ootoris.

Shigeo pushes a small couplet of papers to the other side of the desk. "Sign these."

To her credit, she only blinks once this time before picking up the papers. She certainly doesn't have time to read each one through one-by-one, but the amount of blank lines upon which to write her signature gives her pause. "What are these, exactly?"

"Every last paper needed to make this official. Most are for Ouran."

Still, Kosuke flips through a few. It doesn't look like he's lying, nor can she think of why he would. She's eager to tie up the last loose ends, too, so she picks up the pen pushed toward her and starts flitting _Kosuke Nakahara_ across the lines.

"That sheet on the bottom is for you to take."

Curious, she flips over to it. _Introduction to Accounting, Economic Statistics I, Human Resource Management._ "Right…Bachelor's in Human Resource Management?"

"I thought it'd be easier for you to chew than Health Care Management," drolls Shigeo. "You start tomorrow morning, so if you still need supplies, do so immediately."

Kosuke flips to the page after. It doesn't look like a schedule, but it's filled with class names. Like…a _lot of class names._ Not just Art Appreciation, but French Art Appreciation, Italian Art Appreciation, German Art Appreciation _._ Archery, Woodworking, Fashion Design, Interior Design, Cosmetics, Hairstyling, Embroidery, on and on it goes. Can a single college even have this many courses to offer? "What are these?"

Shigeo gives another brief glance. "Electives. Choose one, I don't care which."

Perhaps Kosuke should've had some more mature patience to look over all her options. As it is, her eyes only glance over the list for a few sparse seconds before zeroing in on the _Culinary Arts_ header. There are still so many to choose from, principle classes, foodservice business classes, cuisine classes, some just about _bread_. She'd be so happy to do each and every one of them, but with only one to choose, she decides on _Application of Culinary Skills I._

In some make-believe fantasy world, she'd be able to have a whole education in culinary arts, a bachelor, a _master's._ Wasn't it the dream of everyone to have a career in something you have love and passion for? But this is the real world where she has responsibilities, and going to the most prestigious college in the country for the best education money can buy is something very few people are lucky to have. It's childish to be upset that it'll be for something _boooring._

Kosuke goes back to signing papers and once again questions the speed of all of this. If she wrote down everything that has happened since Shigeo walked into the Lily Bowl that first day, she'd think that she was missing paragraphs upon paragraphs.

"I have some questions."

Shigeo's brief quietness feels like it's missing a sigh. "About what?"

"Everything and anything, but the kids especially."

Shigeo finally reaches up and takes off his glasses, leveling her with a tired look. Kosuke would rather get all such looks out of the way now instead of suffering them and more later when she makes a fool of herself with the lack of her knowledge. "What about them?"

"Where are they going to school? And when?"

He looks at the sheets scattered over the desk, scanning for a moment before finally pulling a couplet out and passing it to her. "Ouran Kindergarten."

On the one hand, she's both relieved and confused that he has taken it upon himself to ensure their enrollment. Not only that, but at what can only be Japan's most prestigious school. And yet…"Minami should be going into third grade. She's—eight."

"Whatever year they need to be in, they'll be in it. I have people getting them transferred over now."

How he's managing to do that, she doesn't know, but she doesn't protest. He isn't exactly encouraging conversation about the children, but neither is he ignoring their existence.

 _Maybe I'd rather they go ignored than hated,_ Kosuke thinks to herself. They are the children of his divorced and deceased wife, after all. She still doesn't know the cause for said divorce, either, so that might multiply… _whatever_ he feels about the kids.

"Is there anything you need to know about the kids?"

He doesn't spare her a look this time. "For what reason?"

"I mean, if we're going to keep up this story, you're going to have to acknowledge them to a degree. The Ootoris didn't even know I had siblings until I told them."

"I don't see any reason to get better acquainted. People will accept that you are the only connection between me and those two without thinking me heartless."

"Except I'm _not_ the only connection between you and them."

"Do you have a point, or are you stalling until you find one?"

 _Touché._ She does have a point, though. It's just taking her a second to actually put it into words. Taking another breath, she sets the pen down. "Do Minami and Hitsuji have a role in any of this, too?"

He raises a brow at her. "Such as what?"

"Well—I don't know. Are they going to have to learn business practices and company names and all that?" She knows before he silently blinks at her how stupid that sounds, and tries again. "Okay, okay. Are they going to have to go to all the parties and galas and stuff? Do they have to watch how they act in public?"

"They should always watch how they act in public, rich or poor. And if they go to any parties, it'll be birthday celebrations for their classmates." He slides on his glasses again. "I'm going to reiterate that you are the _only_ connection between us. Yes, they need to mind their behavior, but Ouran is going to be their only access to the upper class, understand? They're not going to inherit anything, business or otherwise, and they'll never be important to anyone you or I know. They just exist."

Kosuke processes that for a minute before deciding that she's actually rather okay with that. Kosuke is going to have to sweat and bleed just to get used to having eyes on her all the time, if she ever does. Putting the children under the same scrutiny of strangers they'll never meet wouldn't be possible.

This also makes her a barrier between them and Shigeo, which puts her a little more at ease. All the money he'd promised to keep them afloat was just going to funnel through her, not be directly passed to them. He couldn't pull their strings.

"So…Just for the record, you're not planning on interacting with them…at all."

"Not if I can help it." Shigeo twirled the end of his pen up towards the ceiling for a moment. "I'll hardly be here regardless; I have another estate closer to work an hour's drive from here. When I _am_ here, I don't want to see them or hear them, let alone speak to them. Or about them."

Kosuke will give credit where credit's due; the man knows how to end a topic without saying it outright. If he'd stop doing it to topics that need to keep going, that'd be great. "Anything else I'm not allowed to talk about?"

He clicks his pen. Taps the end on the papers. Clicks the pen again, goes back to writing. "We're not discussing your mother."

Well, it wasn't like she had her fingers crossed. "Do I have any other family I should know about?" This time, the brow he raises at her looks more curious than condescending. "Aunts? Uncles? Stuff like that."

Shigeo shakes his head and sighs. "I don't have any siblings, my mother has passed, and my father is somewhere in the Alps spending his retirement in a tiny little cottage with his wife. I have cousins of my own, but I sincerely doubt you'll ever meet them."

She thinks about her next question and decides to risk it. "What about on the other side?"

This time she can't even decide what the look she gets is. He really does seem so prideful that he can ever run like a finely-tuned machine: things like confusion and surprise are beneath him. "She never mentioned anything?"

"No. Well…" Kosuke tries not to roll her eyes at her own bumbling. It's not like she's out to seek his favor, but she doesn't want to encourage him treating her like an idiot more than he already does. "She'd say things like 'my mother taught me how to do this' and I'd get some stories every now and then, but that's it."

The teeny-tiny little bubble of hope that starts to swell is popped in seconds flat. "It's not important."

_Not even a "they're alive"? Gee. Thanks._

Her grandparents had been just as much a mystery as her father through her life, but Kosuke had never felt the burning demand to know more about them. She asked curious questions, especially when she got those one-sentence mentions, but nothing more than that. Maybe it was just because she thought them Emiko's and Emiko's alone. Even if her father had been dead, Kosuke still felt entitled to know, but if her grandparents had been…well, she wasn't going to push it for fear of causing her mother grief.

Still, she'd figured she might get a semblance of an answer out of someone who knew her mother when she was about two decades younger. Guess not.

"I'm assuming," Shigeo goes on, "that your siblings are the only family you have with you now."

"Yeah?" _Surely he doesn't think I'm hiding a third sibling anywhere…_ "Marti didn't have any siblings and his parents died a long time ago, so."

The fingers around Shigeo's pen stiffen. The muscle in his jaw clenches. The blues of his eyes have gone icy, and Kosuke wonders: do hers do the same thing when she's pissed off?

"For as long as you're with me, we're never going to discuss your mother's husband. For any reason."

Against her will, she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck start to bristle. He hasn't even insulted him, but she knows in his words and his voice and his eyes that he hates Marti—her _real_ father, the man who loved her and raised her and made her the person she is today. The greatest father a girl could ask for, damned because he married Shigeo's ex-wife and fathered two more children with her.

If she was a less mature person—which is to say, if she listened to that little feral part in her brain—she'd double down and snap at him to not even mention Marti with that tone of voice. Maybe slide in a paragraph or two of how he was a million times the father Shigeo could've ever tried to be.

Kosuke is already on thin ice with Shigeo, however, and a visceral response to just "we're never going to talk about him" will make her look as temperamental as a bomb.

There is a plus to this, however: all those memories of what her life used to be like can be kept between Kosuke and her siblings. Shigeo can childishly hate a dead man, but Kosuke will always be the fortunate one for not only knowing him when he was alive but being his daughter and loving him.

"I understand." _Whatever._

Shigeo's eyes stay on her for a few more moments before going back down to the papers. He didn't miss the edge in her voice, nor did he miss her acceptance. Looks like cold civility is going to be par for the course for them here on out.

Without looking, he grabs a folder near the edge of the desk and hands it to her. "That is some basic stuff to know about Amida Health. Not everything, but you won't look like a bumbling idiot if you have to talk about it with someone."

 _Basic stuff?_ Kosuke flips through sheets and sheets that are printed front-and-back in tiny font. _This looks longer than Les Mis! And more depressing._

"Good," she sighs. But she means it; if it'll spare her that nightmarish humiliation again, she'll study it front to back. "I'll get to it."

"And this—" He hands her another folder. "—is everything you need to know about Ootori Medical."

_Aaaaand Atlas Shrugged. Cool._

She flips through the first couple of pages, but what gibberish she can make out is about the company's history and hospital locations and whatnot. There's hardly more than a few passing mentions of Yoshio Ootori, let alone Kyoya.

_Man…I thought I'd be able to figure out something._

"What are you looking for?"

"Hm? Oh—um…" Kosuke flips the folder clothes and needlessly taps the papers within on the desk. "Just seeing if there was anything about Kyoya in this. I don't think I got to know him that well the other night."

Shigeo doesn't look surprised. Or sympathetic. "You'll have the rest of your lives to get acquainted."

He's not wrong.

There was something Marti used to say to her when she was having a bad day. _Obviously you can't force yourself to be happy, but maybe you can try to be optimistic. Try to focus more on the good things than the bad things. I'm not saying it'll fix all your problems, but it might make things just a little bit easier._

So despite her father being cold as stone, having to act like someone she isn't, and a lifetime to spend with a husband who doesn't care for her, Kosuke just tries to be a little more optimistic. She and her siblings are financially secure. They get to live in a splendid mansion, living like royalty. She'll never have material needs again.

She's getting exactly what she was praying for and more. And in fact, if she just ignores the cons entirely, she does feel better.

"Are you done signing?"

Kosuke hurriedly flips to the last few pages and only finds one more place to sign, but before her pen leaves the paper, Shigeo suddenly snatches up the papers and shuffles through them.

A sigh gusts out of his nose and he gives her his first true glare of the day. Cold civility, except when he needs to vent a touch and let it be known that she's incompetent at _best._

"I'll have Ayumu get use more copies." Then he just…chucks them in the trash bin at the end of the desk. Kosuke doesn't even get time _to_ blink like an idiot; he all but tosses more papers over to her. "Sign those."

Properly flabbergasted now, Kosuke does take the time to actually read what this is.

And what it _is_ makes her stop. For a long minute, and it's almost like she's willing to make the world stop with her. As if the grandfather clock on the other side of the room will stop ticking if she wills it hard enough.

_Of all changes to go through, isn't this the least surprising? Not to mention the least troublesome. Come on…_

Try as she does, though, her fingers only twitch on the pen. Her whole hand has gone stiff like a corpse's.

She's aware that Shigeo's watching her, and she's aware of his patience running thinner and thinner, but that's fine if he just stays quiet. Then she can pretend like he's frozen and she did get more time to process. But, of course, Shigeo eventually drolls, "Is there a problem."

Kosuke swallows—her mouth has gone dry. "What if this doesn't work out?"

"Then we'll just change it back." He says it as though it is the most obvious answer in the world…which it is.

"What about the children's?"

He snaps. _"No."_

Now the only thing she knows to do is brace herself like she's about to jump from a high place. She's going to let the clock tick five more times. Then she'll do it. She just has to make the five seconds feel longer.

With three seconds left, she wonders: of everything she's done, what would have caused her parents the most pain? Emiko might've been raging from the first word Kosuke ever spoke to him. Marti, who cried when she gave him that childish little fairytale book, might've bristled just at her calling the stranger her father. Surely neither would be on the same planet as "comfortable" with her bringing in her siblings for every part of it.

This, though, this she feels like she has to apologize for. _Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad._

It takes less than five ticks of the clock to legally change her name from _Kosuke Nakahara_ to _Kosuke Amida._


	16. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya thinks he knows what will happen at Ouran University today. He is wrong.

Kyoya should have appreciated the calm before the storm while he was still in it.

**From: Mitsukuni  
** _**12 MISSED CALLS** _ **  
Kyo-chan!  
You're getting married?  
Really?  
I'm so happy for you! 3 3 3**

**From: Hikaru  
** _**21 MISSED CALLS  
** _ **?  
WAIT REALLY?  
Did the Shadow King actually get hitched?  
To who?  
Do we know her?  
Wait its not that Amaya girl is it**

**From: Kaoru  
** _**23 MISSED CALLS  
** _ **Wait Kyoya are you actually engaged?  
Seriously?!  
Why didn't you tell us?  
Can't believe there's actually going to be a Shadow Queen  
Who is she?  
No one knows**

**From: Takashi  
Congratulations.**

It is in times like these that Kyoya has a deep respect for Takashi Morinozuka.

And also Reiko Kanazuki, who left him one voicemail not even ten seconds long in which she only said, "I just heard about your engagement. Congratulations."

It's funny that not long ago at all, he was begging for something to keep Tamaki from talking to him. He was so close to blocking his number entirely just to get some peace.

Now, Tamaki's complete silence has caused Kyoya some concern.

He's gone over his words time and again trying to figure out what he'd said to make him so abruptly end the call. The only conclusion he comes to is that Tamaki may already know who Kosuke is, which isn't a conclusion at all because that's simply impossible. _Kyoya_ didn't know who Kosuke was before he met her, and he doesn't get to say that about anyone else.

Kyoya can't shake the feeling that there's something going on in Tamaki's mind, but he doesn't try to seek him out. There was no force strong enough to stop a Tamaki Suoh that wanted to talk, so if he had gone mute, there had to be a reason. Besides, he should relish this silence while he can instead of fretting over it.

Haruhi has _also_ been dead quiet, however. Tamaki might have been able to keep the secret, but now it's quite public and he still has not heard a word. The silence from one he might have raised a brow at, but both has Kyoya on edge.

Despite the newsbreak—made a mere _two days_ after his dinner with the Amidas, which seemed fast even to him—his interactions with other human beings has been very limited. He hasn't heard or seen his father, Fuyumi has yet to make another surprise visit, and his house has not seen a guest in a very long time. If not for the staff, he'd be isolated, but he honestly doesn't notice. Two days with no need to leave the house go by so quickly he almost misses them.

He has other things to worry about. Least of all the fact that his engagement is now completely, absolutely official.

It's hard to accept that Ootori Medical is no longer in danger of ruin. It's a painful sort of relief, the pins-and-needles after letting go of a horrible weight. He knows how this all works, but still, after all the mind-numbing stress he'd gone through, it's strange that hundreds of jobs are saved simply by two people becoming engaged.

In some way, he _can't_ accept it. Kyoya keeps his work— _the Project—_ deep in his desk drawer still. After he'd arrived home from his and Kosuke's first meeting (and spent what he thought was a fair amount of time mentally throttling himself for his behavior), he'd gone straight to it. He still tweaks and twiddles with the if-all-else-fails budget. He almost wants to say _just in case,_ but that is a very dangerous train of thought to board.

At the very least, Kyoya can return to the usual needs for his attention: he is more than positive that he'll be returning to his not-job at Ootori Medical very soon. On top of that, he is still a college student. If he follows his abysmal behavior at the dinner with a drop in his grades, Kyoya may very well be under threat of being institutionalized.

There's also a wedding to plan. That'll be _fun._

Speaking of, it's very tempting to make a sort of written plan as to how he's going to salvage his first impression with his fiancée, but Kyoya manages to keep a hold of himself on that. He's told himself time and again now that she isn't a project nor a theory. She's a living, breathing person, and a civil relationship isn't going to be found by crunching numbers and collecting data.

Now that their engagement is official, there's nothing preventing the two of them from interacting. They're not courting in medieval times, they can meet and talk as they please. That's as obvious a place as any to start. It's just…

Alright, Kosuke still isn't a project nor a theory, but this _is_ going to be something that he'll have to fit into his schedule. He simply has other responsibilities to do. Whatever few sparse seconds of free time he had before are gone now.

The silver lining to all of this is that he's done well in his attempts to condition his mind away from Haruhi and Tamaki so far. The second that they so much as flicker into his mind, he finds a distraction. Work, school, whatever. It's worst when he's lying in bed to sleep and has nothing but his thoughts to keep him company, but, well. Nothing warm tea and melatonin pills can't fix.

The Monday following his and Kosuke's first meeting is going to be the first chapter of his new life. The best thing he can do for himself is to pretend as if his engagement is nothing important at all. It's as different yet unbothersome as a new class to attend.

Kyoya feels prepared as he's driven to Ouran that morning, yet is isn't until he sees the colossal pink walls that it occurs to him that he's likely to be bombarded. He doubts there will be a moment between classes wherein he won't be badgered for details on his new fiancée.

Speaking of, Kyoya remembers that she will also be attending Ouran, and for a second he's alarmed at the possibility of bumping into her in the halls. But no, that wouldn't happen today. Friday night, she'd had absolutely no details about her living situation, let alone her academic one; there's no way she'd be ready to attend just three mornings later.

That provides at least a tiny relief as he steps onto the campus and heads for his first class.

When eyes land on him, he feels his defenses go up. He prepares himself to smile and give thanks for congratulations. It won't be hard, he's had years of practice to make him an expert. He hasn't had a secret to hide before, sure, but it won't be difficult to mask.

However, as Kyoya keeps walking, one student—Kazuto Nishimiya, heir to one of Japan's most proficient imported goods businesses—chirps, "Good morning, Kyoya!"

Two of his classmates—Sora and Hana Rin, cousins whose parents partner in ownership of a line of luxury hotels—pass by and wave to him with smiles.

A woman with her nose in a book—a foreign student named Elizabeth Armitage whose family held quite a prolific wine company centered in Europe—nearly walks into him, but when she looks up at the last second, she only says, "Oh, excuse me!"

Kyoya does not get any congratulations, no smiles brimming with excitement, no claps on the back, _anything._ He hardly even gets a look that lingers for a moment too long.

 _Well,_ Kyoya thinks, _this isn't quite what I was expecting._

He knows he should be relieved, but he can't help but feel that something is very, very _off._ He feels like a character in a science fiction story who has started to realize that they have gone back in time, while everyone else is milling around unaware that the day has been reset. It's as if he has a secret everyone should already know.

It takes him a moment to take a breath and realize, _You're being very dramatic._

Kyoya likes to be up-to-date with every student in the school, their lives, what their families do, changes like engagements and births and deaths—but he is also very aware that no one else shows this commitment like he does. He knows that not knowing every classmate's name, being unaware of every event that happens in the life of someone he's never spoken more than two syllables to…is normal. He's the outlier.

As he sits down for his first lecture of the morning, he finally feels some sort of relief. He might not make it through the whole day without some good wishes, but he won't be flooded. How many students even know what his name is?

 _Accept it and be thankful,_ Kyoya tells himself. _You could very well be looking to another uneventful day._

Still, as Kyoya walks to his next class, he keeps an eye and ear open for the Hosts. They don't share any lectures on Monday, but he imagines he should at least run into them in the halls. He doesn't see the twins, nor does he see the tallest Zuka trailing his cousin to class. He doesn't even catch a glimpse of familiar blonde hair—neither on a violet-eyed club president or a blue-eyed stranger from a mountain town.

Without any such distractions, he finally gets back to functioning the way that he used to. He focuses on his work and only wonders after his schedule for the week, if his father will contact him when he wants him to return. He doesn't get lost in the teacher's words fretting about the new fixture in his life or the two people he can't have.

In fact, for the rest of his time in classes, it feels just like it used to be. Normal, unchanged.

 _Maybe everything is,_ Kyoya tells himself after his last teacher of the day dismisses them. _You've just been blowing everything out of proportion._

He almost feels disappointed at having to leave for the day. He wonders if going home is going to do the same thing to him as lying in bed to go to sleep—with nothing to distract or keep him on schedule, he'll go spiraling down the rabbit hole once again.

No. No, he's fine. These past few days were all just one, long episode. He's fine. Kyoya Ootori is fine.

That said, there is a little bit of a record scratch as he spots a familiar head of long black hair at the end of the hall.

"Fuyumi?"

His older sister smiles as soon as she sees him. She's dressed a little formally, in a knee-length lavender dress and a pearl necklace, but then again, casual wear isn't really her style. She meets him halfway, practically skipping in her kitten heels.

"Kyoya," she exclaims, as if she were not waiting for him at all. "There you are! You don't mind if I take you home today, huh?"

"I…don't, but why?"

"My plans today got overhauled," she sighs. "Everything I was going to do went down the drain— _so,_ I figured why not hang out with you some? I'm in the area anyway."

For once (though he knows he shouldn't say that,) Kyoya is actually pleased at the idea of Fuyumi staying around. She might provide a welcome distraction.

"Alright." Kyoya shifts his leather briefcase to the other hand. "But just so you know, I have some classwork I need to finish this evening."

"Oh, that's no trouble. Maybe I can help!"

"Wasn't it _me_ who helped _you_ with your college courses before?"

Puffing her cheeks, Fuyumi mumbles, "Well, if you're going to be rude about it…" She suddenly perks up like a daisy, and gives his free hand a tug. "Can we take a little trip before we go? I want to look at my old classroom."

"Alright, alright. Lead the way."

Fuyumi leads them across one of the courtyards to another building. It's a beautiful day out—the roses are in full bloom, the cherubs in the fountain pouring sparkling water from their vases. The sunlight is warm on his skin.

It all loses some of its luster, though, when Fuyumi chirps, "So when are you going to see Kosuke again?"

Thankfully, though, Kyoya doesn't feel anything bitter at the question. He almost feels numb to it, which is—better, maybe? "I'm not sure. I thought maybe I would wait until she started classes so I can at least know what her schedule is. She did say she had a lot to figure out."

An understatement, but Fuyumi just smiles brighter. "So when are we going to start planning wedding stuff?"

"'We'?"

"Oh, no, mister. Don't you think for one second I'm not going to help. Lucky for you, I saved all the ideas Tetsu and I didn't use for our wedding, so we've got a head start! Have you been thinking of where, though? Brazil? The Alps? I would say Paris, but I feel like that's too obvious."

Kyoya's vision of his wedding day was nothing more than a scribbly image of a woman in a lump of a white dress and himself in a dark suit. The only thing that has changed is that the woman is blonde now.

"We won't be getting married until after we're out of college. I think we have time to plan all those things."

"You're saying that now, but wait until everyone you want is booked." Fuyumi pauses for a moment, considering, and smiles back again. "At least tell me what you're most looking forward to."

"I'm not sure. The company, I guess. I imagine all the Hosts will be attending, but there should also be a number of people I would like to discuss future business plans with—"

"Not the wedding, just…life! Married life!"

"Married life."

"Yeah! You know, living in the same house, eating your meals together, going out on dates…" Fuyumi's voice drops to an implying whisper. "Have you thought about kids yet…?"

"As a matter of fact, I haven't."

"Sorry, sorry!" Fuyumi looks contrite for all of two seconds before twiddling her fingers and mumbling, "But I want some nieces and nephews and Yuuichi and Akito aren't showing any promise…"

"So you need to ask the brother that isn't even married yet."

"I'm not proud, Kyoya. Anyway, come on!" Fuyumi bumps against him as they come under the shadows of the outside hallway. The pink Greek columns cast long shadows over the bricks. "Talk to me. Tell me what you like about her."

…That's a question. What does Kyoya say?

Well, Kosuke is very pretty, but how vain and simple was that? She seems nice…when she's not drinking while someone's talking to her or looking at her phone during a meal or leaving him waiting for her. But—okay, he might not be able to talk about politeness after his behavior. She's _probably_ smart. Possibly. Unexperienced and unorganized, agreeing to heirdom of a highly profitable company when she doesn't even know how she'll be attending classes at college.

Oh, dear. Bad first meeting and his own romantic worries aside, Kyoya has just realized that he actually does not like his fiancée at all.

"She's nice."

"Poetic. Come on, what else!"

"She's very polite." Fuyumi blinks at him. "She did thank the waiters when they were serving us, I recall."

"You…really don't know what to say, huh?"

"We have only just met, Fuyumi. I have to admit, I'm not that well-acquainted with her personality just yet."

"Right, but…Well. Are you excited about seeing her again? Planning your first date?"

"I have some ideas," Kyoya says a bit distractedly, checking in his briefcase as they walk. He has the nasty habit of leaving his fountain pen on his desk in his usual hurry to get back to work. "There's a number of restaurants close by. Maybe I should take her to one."

He should've watched his tone more. It isn't bitter or mean, but it's distracted and aloof. He forgets to mask the fact that this is just another addition to his schedule. He forgets to feign interest.

Fuyumi's clacking footsteps pull to a stop. They are just outside the double-doors of the University's dance studio, but instead of walking in to look at room where she spent two years of extracurricular ballet, Fuyumi has stopped still and is staring at him.

Kyoya is alarmed to see horror on her face.

"You don't like her."

"What?"

"Kosuke. You don't like her."

"What did I say that made you think that?"

But Fuyumi is already spiraling into despair. Her hands have come up to clasp her cheeks, her eyes glazed over as they stare into the floor.

"How could I not see it? What was I thinking? You're _Kyoya._ You—You have to _know_ people before you want to be friends with them, and here I am thinking you'll already have feelings for her after _one day?"_

"No, no, no—"

"I've been—I've been rubbing it in, talking about all this wedding stuff. Just making things worse." Fuyumi buries her face into her palms. Kyoya fears she's one second away from crumpling to her knees. "I'm such a horrible sister! How could I not see it?"

"Fuyumi, listen to me. Everything is fine, I _promise._ "

So quickly he nearly jumps, Fuyumi snatches up his hands in hers, eyes trying so hard to be steely. "Let's talk to Father."

"Wh—Why would we do that?"

"So he can find someone else!" Fuyumi's hands are trembling over his. "Kyoya, I can't let you get married to someone you don't like! You…You deserve to be happy. You deserve to marry someone you _love._ "

Kyoya imagines that he's about to respond in quite a paragraph. He can't call off this engagement, she _knows_ he can't call of the engagement, it's set in stone now. Thousands of people are relying on this thing to work. Does she think their father cares? Does she think Yoshio Ootori will be convinced to stop their family's salvation because Kyoya doesn't get a fairy tale ending?

But above all, he's going to be _fine,_ Fuyumi. He's not going to fall apart just because he doesn't get a happily ever after.

He doesn't get to tell her all of this, however. The doors suddenly pull wide open, and Kyoya's eardrums are assaulted by a cacophony of, _"SURPRISE!"_

Inside of the studio, there's…Well. Everyone. Hikaru and Kaoru have both donned matching party hats and are popping off as many confetti bottles as they can hold. Hani is blowing a party horn as hard as his lungs can manage. Behind him, Mori and Reiko are giving golf applause, but have donned party hats of their own no doubt at the request of Hani.

They're just an island in the middle of a sea of students. Some Kyoya knows but is not familiar with, but most are his classmates, former customers of the Host Club. Momoka and Kimiko, and Momoka's fiancé Kazukiyo. Kanako and Toru, just a few short years away from their wedding. Kasanoda, surprisingly. And of course, Renge, looking as if she is two seconds away from erupting into a volcano of excitement. There are dozens upon dozens of them, and with the mirrors that line the walls, they seem to go on forever.

They're cheering. They're applauding. And they are all looking right at him.

Kyoya does the thing he's supposed to do and smiles. Inside, he's screaming.

He's pulled into the ocean before he can bother walking. There are _far too many_ hands touching him, clapping him on the shoulder, patting him on the back. And over and over and over: "Congratulations!"

Kyoya repeats over and over and over, "Thank you."

So he was never going to have a normal day at all.

He's disappointed, but not surprised.

As he's pulled further into the throng, he tilts his head behind him to look at Fuyumi. She's following, distanced from the people who flock in her way, and her smile is as fake as plastic. Her gaze is still heavy. Brimming with guilt and worry.

If that doesn't make Kyoya's stomach churn, turning back around and seeing Tamaki Suoh with a smile that was not absolutely sincere does.

He's applauding, he's calm, but as Kyoya approaches closer and closer and he opens his mouth, Kyoya thinks he's alarmingly not in store for a typical reaction from him. This is now the appropriate time for him to be bouncing off the walls in excitement, and instead he's looking at Kyoya with that eerie, calm smile.

Well, whatever he's about to say, it gets thrown out the window when the twins bodily slam him out of their way.

" _The Shadow King got hitched,"_ they both trill.

Hikaru takes on the devilish smirk Kyoya is far too acquainted with and slaps him on the shoulder. It's hard enough to shake him, which only seems to please the older Hitachiin twin more. "Gotta say, I honestly didn't think it was going to happen."

Kaoru slaps him on the other shoulder. Even though they are much more individual than they were some years ago, they still love to do many things in unison—torment, for example. "Yeah, I thought you were going to be a lifelong bachelor."

"Excuse you both!" Tamaki has forgotten about whatever it was he was going to tell Kyoya before. He stomps back to the twins with a sizable lump on his head. "What makes you think Kyoya doesn't deserve happiness as much as anyone else?"

"It isn't about 'deserving,' Boss." Hikaru uses his free arm to jab his thumb at Kyoya. "Come on, can you remember a single time Kyoya showed interest in a girl?"

Kaoru points out, "He _was_ the only Host who wasn't…Well. A Host."

"I thought you all had it more than covered." Kyoya shrugs the twins' hands off and straightens out his blazer. He hadn't bothered with a tie today, a decision he's regretting even though there was no way to predict this nightmare surprise party. "Besides, wasn't unattainability part of the appeal?"

"He's right, you know!" Renge appears from just about nowhere, as she always does. Though not exactly part of the Club, they'd all become quite used to her presence over the years. Though Kyoya does sometimes remember that she might not be attending Ouran University at all if she hadn't been convinced he was the non-fictional reincarnation of an otome character. "The more mystery, the better the tall-dark-and-handsome character is!" Renge's knowing smile dropped, a finger coming up to tap at her chin. "It's probably best you got engaged after the Club split, though. Being taken kind of ruins the fantasy."

 _What fantasy?_ Kyoya doesn't ask. Hani flutters up into his view, glowing as bright as the sun.

"Congratulations, Kyoya!" As his cousin hums his agreement behind him, Hani brandishes a business card. "Here! This is the best baker I've ever gotten cake from. You need to use them for your wedding!"

"You would have an expert's opinion," Kyoya agrees, and tucks the business card in his breast pocket. He wonders if he's just going to chuck it in the garbage the first chance he gets. "Thank you." Taking a glance around the room—a short one, as he is all too aware that despite the buzz of conversations, all eyes are on him—he asks, "How did you guys manage to get this together so quickly?"

"It didn't take much effort," Reiko answers. Her voice is as light and monotone as usual. "As soon as everyone heard, throwing a surprise party was unanimous."

The twins chirped (read: taunted), "And we know how much you love surprises!"

"Fuyumi did most of the legwork, though," adds Tamaki, and the twins nod in agreement. "I was surprised she got a caterer so fast!"

Kyoya takes another glance back at his sister. She's in conversation with a trio of freshmen girls, chittering happily, but Fuyumi's smile is still wavering. Kyoya turns back around as soon as her eyes, still wary, turn back to him. This isn't good.

Renge swirls her way over to him. She has somehow procured a notepad and pencil despite her tea dress having no pockets. "Now, I want a full plot synopsis! How did you two meet? How did you propose?"

Kyoya glances around at all the eager faces. "I thought you all knew. It was arranged between our fathers. No one proposed."

Kaoru blows a raspberry, while Renge rolls her eyes up to the heavens. "Well, at least make it _sound_ exciting!" Shaking her head and sending her pigtails bobbing, Renge tuts and wanders off with her nose against the paper. "This was supposed to be a ripe source of material…!"

Hikaru feigns a forlorn sigh and throws an arm around his brother's shoulders. "Guess that just leaves you and me in the Singles Club. And you, Mori."

Mori hums, not looking particularly amused.

Tamaki has stepped away from just a moment during all of this, and he reappears with two glass cups of punch. He hands one to Kyoya with a smile, but there is still something so _off_ that Kyoya can't help but furrow his brows at the blond. Where is the bubbling excitement? The blinding joy? What could possibly be wrong to Tamaki?

Is he jealous?

_Don't you dare board that train of thought._

As Mori also breaks off towards the refreshments, and Reiko asks Hani what kind of cake he'd like, Kaoru claps his hands together. "Alright. Give us the details."

Again, it's so expected Kyoya is just numb to the question. He takes a sip of punch— _You have some nerve, judging a girl who just stepped into high society for doing just that—_ and asks, "What do you want to know?"

"Um…" Hikaru looks to his brother, who mirrors his raised brow. " _Anything_ would be a good start."

"Seriously, we've asked around," says Kaoru. "No one knows anything about her. It's like she didn't exist before now."

To the side, Hani nods. "Everyone I asked didn't even know Mr. Amida _had_ a daughter."

"To be fair, neither did he." Kyoya lets it out easily, but realizes his mistake when eyebrows go shooting up to hairlines.

Of course this isn't public knowledge, what the hell is he doing?

On the one hand, Kyoya has no business sharing all of this, especially when it seems that neither Amida has let such information go to the public. On the other hand, this will certainly break very soon, and he can't take back what he said. The bottom line is that he very much wishes he could.

When he takes too long to explain, Hani blinks his giant brown orbs and parrots, "He didn't know?"

Reiko and Mori return at the same time, Reiko asking as she hands a sizable slice of German chocolate cake to her fiancé, "Who doesn't know what?"

For once, Hani is so confused that he doesn't down the cake the second it's in his hands. "Mr. Amida didn't even know he had a daughter."

"Could you—Please." Kyoya waves his free hand at them, eyes flitting around the room. Eyes are still on him, but they are still warm and congratulatory. No one has heard. More importantly, Renge is nowhere to be seen. "I shouldn't have said anything, don't tell anyone else."

"You have to tell _us,"_ Hikaru insists.

His brother adds, "Seriously, don't just leave us hanging. What do you mean?"

Huffing through his nose, Kyoya steps a bit closer. So do the others, including Mori, until they've wound into a tight circle—though they certainly don't look discreet, the other attendees respectfully turn away as to not eavesdrop.

"I don't know every little detail," whispers Kyoya, still hating that he's saying this at all. "Mr. Amida's wife was pregnant when they divorced, but he didn't know. He only met his daughter just recently."

"And he already offered her heirdom of the company?" whispers Hikaru.

"Yes." _For some reason._

"Wow." Kaoru blinks for a second. "Wait, then who is her mom?"

"She…" _She's dead. Remember that, Kyoya. Remember that this woman has lost her mother not too long ago, and letting her make that known on her own terms is the least you could do._ "No one, really. She raised her daughter in an average life."

"A commoner? Like Haruhi?" When Kyoya nods, Hani perks up— _now_ having chomped down most of his cake—and chirps, "I bet the two of them will get along!"

Another reminder that Kosuke cannot be distanced from the rest of his life. The idea alone of her standing here and talking to the others just makes Kyoya uncomfortable. It just doesn't fit.

As the circle disbands and he sees Tamaki—who he only now realizes didn'thuddle in to listen—Kyoya feels like he's about to blurt out at him. Tamaki's eyes have gone to the side, watching the crowd mingle and mix, but there's something on his mind and it's clear all over his face. Kyoya has already told him the story, hasn't he? If Kyoya didn't know any better, he'd almost say that the Prince was worried.

Or Jealous? _Stop. It._

"Alright," says Kaoru, pulling Kyoya back to the present. The younger twin puts on a smile, obviously trying to bring the atmosphere back up. "Well, that's something. But what else do you have?"

Hani exclaims, "Yeah! What's she like?"

"What does she look like?" asks Hikaru. "She has to be pretty cute, huh?"

Even Reiko jumped in with the hounding. "What is her personality?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out," confesses Kaoru. "The only girl I can see with Kyoya is one that's exactly like him, but I don't think Japan can take that much dark energy together."

Kyoya is almost happy to stop the questions. "She was a bit shy when we met, but she's very nice. Friendly."

Kaoru is unimpressed with the response. "Well slow down, Romeo."

"They did just meet," Hikaru maturely reminds him…only to then add, "She's cute though, right?"

It's a foreboding sign that Tamaki does nothing more than give him a look and a sharp nudge with his elbow—no harsh scoldings, no snapping at his behavior.

As always, Hikaru is hardly fazed. "It's a fair question!"

What really has Kyoya so confused in all of this—and Fuyumi's, before he'd let his façade crack too much—is how despite knowing the pure bureaucracy with which the engagement was made, they still excitedly gush as though Kyoya has popped the question to the woman of his dreams. He's been trying hard to be amiable about all of this, to be a gentleman maturely accepting his betrothal to a proper woman, but what has he done to seem as though he's head over heels?

The more that the others titter and chatter, the more Tamaki's shoulder stiffens. He's never seen Tamaki Suoh uncomfortable at a social gathering.

More so than that, Kyoya can't help but feel that Tamaki is holding a secret, somehow.

Is he j—

 _He is_ engaged _to be_ married.

Tuning back into the conversation, Kyoya catches Hikaru sighing, "Look, we're going to meet her in just a minute anyway. We'll find out what she's like then."

Kyoya is relieved that the conversation has come to a close…

…until he rewinds what Hikaru just said.

"'In just a minute'?"

"Yeah, she's coming, too," Kaoru answers, completely casual.

Reiko sweeps her gaze around the room elegantly. "They're a little late."

Literally just as she says this, a shout rises up from the crowd: "They're coming!"

Suddenly Kyoya is caught in a haze of _Shh, shh, shh._ The conversations all die as people glue their mouths shut, some crouching as if they were going to hide. The excitement is as silent as it is electric.

Kyoya only gets one last second as the doors open before his two worlds collide.

Kosuke is there, standing in the doorway, crushingly real. Her blonde hair is loose to her shoulders now, bangs braided to the side. Gone is the ankle-length dress—now she's wearing a mint green cap-sleeve shirt tucked into a high-waisted denim skirt. There are no adornments besides a simple fleur-de-lis necklace dangling at her chest. Though she's not dressed in designer items as most female Ouran students do, she is nevertheless a college student in casual wear, and thus no less human.

When the room full of strangers scream, _"SURPRISE!"_ Kyoya thinks for a moment that Kosuke has been sent into cardiac arrest. Then she's all but pulled into the babbling crowd, strangers smiling in her face, and Kyoya almost feels bad for her. She tries to put on a smile, but it keeps slipping, leaving her looking horribly lost.

Watching as the first excited wave consumes her, Hani beams. "She's really pretty!"

"Told you she would be." Hikaru dips his voice lower. "Nice legs, too. _Ow!"_

While Tamaki glares dagger into Hikaru, now with a sizable lump on his own head, Kaoru hums. "Not what I expected, to be honest. I always imagined Kyoya with a girl who was…Well, tall dark and handsome. Not that she's not handsome."

Again, what did it matter? Kyoya has no choice in this. He takes another sip of his punch. "I'm glad she has your approval."

"Whoa, slow down there," Hikaru says with a smirk. Kyoya's mood drops lower, if at all possible.

Kaoru, of course, mirrors the devious smile. "We haven't gotten to know her yet. Let's wait and see if we approve or not."

Kyoya doesn't get to protest before the twins slink in his fiancée's direction. Hani skips behind them, Reiko and Mori bringing up the rear. For a second, Kyoya wonders if he should follow and maybe spare Kosuke some trouble. If this surprise party is already overwhelming her, the Hosts are going to knock her off her feet.

Then he feels a warmth on his shoulder, and he turns. Tamaki is not smiling. He looks nervous.

"Kyoya…Could I talk to you for a minute?"

Fully unnerved now, Kyoya simply nods and lets Tamaki lead the way. There's no privacy to be found anywhere in the studio, not even pressed against the walls, so they wind their way to the changing rooms at the end. Other than a few curious glances their way, no one pays them any mind.

With nothing but lockers and benches in their company, Kyoya takes a breath of fresh air. He hadn't even realized he'd felt so stifled while he was among the crowd.

Tamaki locks the door behind them for good measure, but looks no less nervous. The smile he gives Kyoya is as wobbly as gelatin.

"I hope you don't mind the party…!" Tamaki twiddles the tips of his fingers together. Sheepishness is not a usual look for him. "Can't say it wasn't my idea, though…"

"It's fine. I probably should've seen it coming." He only means it factually, but Tamaki's head dips a little lower. He's not looking at Kyoya at all. "Is something wrong?"

"No! Yes. No." Tamaki shakes his head fervently, tossing his golden locks everywhere, trying to get a hold of himself. "Nothing's _wrong…_ but I think there's something you should know."

There is a tiny, tiny, tiny—atom-sized—flicker of hope that Kyoya tries to snuff out. Why does he keep forgetting that Haruhi is practically Tamaki's world? If she were here, he wouldn't be able to take his eyes off of her.

Still, seeing the Prince so uncharacteristically dim, Kyoya asks, "Are you sure nothing's wrong?"

"Well…It's something I think I maybe should've told you sooner? I mean…I kind of wanted to tell you when you were at the dinner, but I panicked."

Okay…Despite himself, the flicker grows, and Kyoya rushes to extinguish it. He really is delusional. "I'm sure I won't be upset, Tamaki. Just say it."

Tamaki twiddles his fingers for a few more minutes.

"Um…You remember when Haruhi's classes got cancelled last year and she went on that trip to Karuizawa?"

Well, that certainly throws Kyoya off-track. "Erm—Yes?"

"And you remember how she made a friend there?"

"Yes."

"Right…And, uh…Remember how I said she's Haruhi's best friend now and they hang out a lot and I really wanted you to meet her sometime?"

Goodness, is she here now? Kyoya has to admit, a stranger's engagement party seems like a fairly private event to invite a friend along for. For a second he wonders if that's why Tamaki is so quiet, but no, he should be bouncing off the walls to introduce Kyoya to Haruhi's best friend, especially after talking her up for so long.

"Yes, I remember. Is she here now?"

"Yeeeaaaahhh…" Tamaki swallows so hard Kyoya can hear it. "Do, um…Do you remember what her name was?"

Hm…It shouldn't be that hard to remember, he mentioned her often enough. It started with a…C? No, a K. Ka…Ki…Ke…

Ko…

Kos…

_Wait a second._

Kyoya scans his eyes over Tamaki's face, over and over and over. Tamaki still has yet to meet his gaze. He is still as a stone. Sweat is running down his temples.

Just—

_No._

There was no. possible. _way—_

"Tamaki, are you trying to tell me…that the woman I am engaged to, who no one here even knew existed before now…" Kyoya sticks a limp finger towards the locked doors. "…also _just so happens_ to be friend Haruhi met at Karuizawa?"

"… _mm-hm…"_

Kyoya tries to accept it.

He cannot.

It's too near to impossible.

Just—

Wh—

There are over 125,000,000 people currently living in Japan.

What. Are the _odds._

The…

This is not—real.

How long has he been standing there, silent and processing? Thirty seconds or thirty minutes? However long, sweat is starting to pour down Tamaki's face, drops as large as bullets.

"I—I—I know it sounds weird." Tamaki's eyes are both restless and unwilling to meet Kyoya's, so they're rolling around in his skull like pachinko balls now. "I thought it was just a coincidence when you said her name was Kosuke, because her surname has always been Nakahara to me, but we've been talking and her estranged father just came back to meet her for the first time, so when you said that, I asked about what she looked like, and I still thought maybe it wasn't that weird, but I was really worried, but I didn't want to alarm you, so I asked Fuyumi what she looked like and it turns out she took a picture when no one was looking, and _yeah,_ it was Kosuke, and I was really shocked and didn't really know what to do and I didn't really know if it mattered or not, and I asked Haruhi about it but she didn't know anything so apparently this was supposed to be some kind of secret and I'm sorry if you're angry Kyoya but I really, really didn't know what to do."

Which—okay. _Does not_ make things any clearer or easier to grasp.

Just—

_What are the odds._

Not the peculiar circumstances of Kosuke's life, the fact that she _just so happened—_ by sheer _coincidence—_ met Haruhi and Tamaki.

Kyoya's almost crossing his fingers hoping that this is just a joke.

Tamaki's been twiddling his fingertips so long now that his indexes have gone red. "Are you mad?"

Kyoya blinks, but maybe just because it's the only movement his body will let him do. "No…"

"You're sure?"

"What are you apologizing for?" Kyoya knows it should, but his voice doesn't have any comforting reassurance. Tamaki's sheepishness is only serving to confuse him even more. "You haven't done anything."

Finally, the Prince's eyes meet his, not quite at their full puppy-dog-level power, but close. Kyoya's stomach flips. "Yeah?"

"I—Yes. Just…" Kyoya readjusts his glasses and looks away himself. Another moment of wishing the world would stop spinning so he could just process everything correctly. "That's…surprising."

"It is…Like I said, it sounded like such a one-in-a-million thing I had to make sure. I really don't know what the odds are."

"Neither do I." Kyoya tries to think of the first question he's going to ask. "Does anyone else know? Does Fuyumi know?"

"Just me and Haruhi as far as I know. And you, now. So, just to be clear…you're not angry…?"

"No, Tamaki. I'm not angry."

"Good. Good. Well, then…"

Tamaki's hands clasp together just under his nose and he takes a long, deep breath that melts the tension from his shoulders.

 _Then_ he smiles the Tamaki Suoh smile. Kyoya regrets missing it.

"This is _great!"_

"Great," Kyoya repeats numbly. He still can't get a grasp on this. "This is great."

"I already knew she had to be amazing." Tamaki's hands grasp Kyoya's arms, giving him a little shake. "For you to already like her right after meeting her…I tried to come up with an idea of what she might be like, but not only do I already know her, I know for a fact you're going to be _so happy_ with her! She's kind, she's responsible, she's such a hard worker—and the most amazing cook I've ever met!"

Kyoya tries his best to take note of this, find some solace.

125,000,000 people…

Tamaki's eyes have only grown starrier and starrier, looking almost like violet galaxies at their peak, until he glances away with another sheepish (but not nearly so guilty) smile. "I'll be honest, I was kind of nervous for a minute about her being a stranger…I know this probably sounds selfish, but I've been so used to things being a certain way, I thought it was going to take me a long time to get used to you being with someone…but I don't have to worry about that anymore!"

Well, Kyoya can agree with that much…"Did she…not tell you or Haruhi?"

The beaming smile slips from Tamaki's face. "Well…She was pretty close-lipped about it. All she said was that her father came to talk to her. I don't think she was trying to keep a secret; I wouldn't know how to explain it, either. She's been texting Haruhi about needing to talk to her…I'm pretty sure she's already moved into Mr. Amida's estate here in Tokyo."

Then Kyoya has to remember (after _instantly_ forgetting) that it's not as simple as friendship, it's _best friendship._ For every memory that comes back to him, two more flicker out. "What has Haruhi said?"

"Well…" Tamaki taps his finger on his chin. "We actually haven't talked since we found out…I think she's just really shocked. I invited her today, but she never said if she was going to show or not."

Kyoya himself doesn't even know if Haruhi being here would make him feel better or worse. He misses the days when they were swept up into the Host Club's antics and the two of them could find peace and quiet in each other's presence.

"Kyoya?" Tamaki's long fingers snap in front of his nose. Kyoya doesn't know how he has the energy to go through so many emotions so quickly—guilty, afraid, ecstatic, concerned. "You're not saying anything…"

"I'm just…surprised. It seems so—unlikely."

"Oh, I know. I honestly have a hard time believing it myself." The stars returned. "But I consider this an amazing turn of fate!"

"You're not wrong…" Kyoya swallowed. His bodily functions were slowly coming back to him. "So this all really did happen at once for her."

There was only the tiniest of shrugs in Tamaki's shoulders. He seemed to be in Kyoya's boat—unsure if it was his place to speak of Kosuke's personal life. "She said she didn't even know her father's name before they met. She was just living in Karuizawa, working as a cashier a grocery store and taking care of her siblings. I'm a little worried, honestly…Knowing how she lived before, if all of this is going to be too much for her."

Kyoya knows that Tamaki's probably just talking about the superficial things—the glitz and glamor, the etiquette to follow. Kyoya, though, he's thinking of how his fiancée is in no way, shape, or form prepared to be an heiress. When Mr. Amida passes, or if he passes Amida Health down early, it'll be in the hands of a woman whose employment experience hasn't been any more complicated than counting correct change.

"Well." He tricks his tongue, tells himself not to do it again. "If she's as great as you've been saying, I'm sure she'll be fine."

"'As I've been saying?" Tamaki's delicate blonde eyelashes flutter for a moment. "I thought you liked her."

_Stop DOING that._

Having Fuyumi know convinced that Kyoya is going to be trapped in a bitter marriage already has his nerves on edge. If Tamaki gets the same idea, that's _two_ sets of pitying eyes that are going to be following him around for the rest of his days. Not to mention, though he doesn't want to sell the Prince short, that he can't help but worry how long Tamaki can hold a secret for. The one he'd just confessed took…what, three days before it was safe to let it loose? Tamaki is not going to be able to make it for the rest of their lives.

"I _do,"_ he insits. "I just wish I knew more about her."

It works. Tamaki throws an arm around him and pulls him in for a crushing side-hug. "Well, you have the rest of your lives to learn!"

"That's true."

Very true.

Tamaki pulls back and lets his hand linger on Kyoya's shoulder. "Just come out and join us when you're ready, okay? We'll be waiting."

Tamaki leaves, the brief opening of the door letting in a burst of excited babble from outside before Kyoya is left in silence. He should really appreciate it more.

The Prince wasn't wrong; Kosuke being a familiar face to at least a few of the Hosts means she won't be so jarring a change for them all. She has to be used to everything Tamaki Suoh by now, and having the title of Haruhi's best friend should speak wonders of her character. Except that problem hadn't even occurred to Kyoya, and what he still did not have a solution for was how _he_ was supposed to get used to it.

He'd been so discomfited by the idea of Kosuke sitting with the others, talking to them, sharing jokes, just being comfortable in each other's presence—it was that standard feeling of two people in your life who have never been in the same room suddenly coming together, but multiplied by a thousand.

He still can't picture it, but…Oh well. It's happened.

It's probably only bothering him because Kosuke still doesn't seem…individual to him. She's real, but all strangers are. She's just like every other person in his life he's researched without meeting. He knows her story, he's heard what her personality is, he knows a few little facts about her, but that does not amount to a person.

Kyoya sucks in air while he still can. Does this change anything? No, not really. They're still getting married in the end.

This is just…weird. Too weird. But—he needs to stop worrying about problems that aren't problems. He was doing well for a minute there. A bump in the road, that's all.

Besides, anyone would be thrown by this. It isn't Kyoya blowing this out of proportion, it _is_ strange.

It's fine. It's fine, it's fine. This is not a problem. He'll get over it.

He can't stay in the changing rooms anyway. Running a hand over the front of his shirt, Kyoya opens the door and takes another look at the crowd before he ducks in. Kosuke has been officially trapped by the others—Hikaru and Kaoru look all too pleased to be grilling her. The other students have not stopped to stare, but many are watching Kosuke, some looking amused. Renge is all but breathing down her neck. Haruhi still isn't anywhere to be found.

Tamaki takes a moment to locate, and Kyoya's jaw clenches when he sees what he's doing. He and Fuyumi are pulled just slightly off to the side, a conversation just for the two of them. Fuyumi is not smiling. Kyoya can't hear a word she's saying regardless, but he knows just by looking that her voice is hushed. Tamaki is trying to keep up a smile, but it keeps flickering the more that Fuyumi speaks. She's trying to convince him of something. He's trying to convince her of something else.

Well, this _is_ a problem. One he's definitely going to need a solution to.

Thinking quickly, Kyoya looks back over to Kosuke. She still looks flustered as she speaks to the others, but is clearly trying to be friendly.

_Okay. Let's touch up on those acting skills._


	17. Record Scratch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kosuke arrives to the party and deals with all the curveballs that follow. Including a conversation with her fiance that does not go how she predicts.

She probably should have slept the night before her first day of college. She tried to, she really did, but no matter how long she kept her eyes shut, they never stayed. She was not used to sinking in three feet on the mattress, the feeling of silk on her skin. She was supposed to open her eyes and see glow-in-the-dark stars that had long lost their light glued to the ceiling, not the top of a poster bed. Her ungratefulness still hadn’t left, it seemed.

More than school, though, it was the last sleep for the rest of her life. Last sleep before she was trained to be an heiress. Last sleep without worrying about how she looked and acted in front of absolute strangers. Last sleep for the real Kosuke. She tried to just think about school.

Kosuke guesses she experienced high school the way most teenagers did—fun for the company, miserable for the work. When she’d wept tears at graduation, it wasn’t for memories of pop quizzes and three-page essays. The only thing she actively looked forward to about college was the day maybe ending before three.

If her younger self could see her present one, she’d laugh. Kosuke had spent a year now lamenting that she couldn’t go to college. Sometimes she’d let herself have little fantasies of going to culinary classes, eating up everything she could about food history, food preparation, even the “boring” things like safety guidelines. She had been to Seneca a few times before. She still remembers the halls and corridors, could still hear her footsteps on the boards.

Now she was going to be attending the most expensive, most prestigious college in the country. To learn to take over her father’s business. With her fiancé who hated her guts.

Kosuke promised herself that she’d do better, if for no other reason than to save herself the damnation of a marriage to a man who couldn’t stand her. She should have been excited to see Kyoya again and set things right, but instead, the idea just makes her stomach turn. Not only that, but Tamaki goes to Ouran Univeristy, too. If she’s lucky, she’ll be able to explain everything to him in private before he sees her in the halls first and loses his mind. She’d been so sure she’d be telling Haruhi first…She wondered, if Haruhi had replied to her messages before now, if it would have made her feel better at all.

But, at the end of the day, Kosuke has made her bed and now she must lie in it. She could have said no to all this. Well—Okay, no, she couldn’t have, but the point still stood. She was doing all this for a reason. There was a timeline where Kosuke turned down Shigeo’s offer, and now she and her siblings are near-destitute, and Minami and Hitsuji have no chance of a future. Kosuke has avoided that timeline.

Money. It all comes down to money. The reason why she agreed to this in the first place, the reason why Shigeo even wanted her to begin with.

Speaking of money, she remembers that she still has a shark tailing her. Now, Kosuke doubts he can do _that_ much anymore—with all the cameras hooked up around the mansion’s perimeter, he is not one of the reasons she struggles to find sleep. _But,_ she imagines that in this new world where your image could just about kill you, neither Shigeo nor the Ootoris will be anywhere near happy if they find out she’s slipping money to a criminal. Hell, considering how happy the shark was to torment and twist her into coughing up the cash, he could very well demand more once he finds out of her new circumstances. Threaten to let the “business world” know her under-the-table dealings.

Oh, no…Is paying illegal loan shark debts illegal? Is Kosuke a criminal, too? Haruhi is studying law, what’s a non-obvious way she can ask?

Well, Kosuke will just have to keep up what she’s been doing. Putting the cash in an envelope, dropping it in a box. For…Well, she’s not great at doing math in her head, so it could be years. She’s going to have to pay around 4,730,000 yen in total. So far, she’s payed around 800,000.

The silver lining to all of this is that right now, Minami and Hitsuji seem happy. They have thoroughly broken in their new bedrooms, they danced in victory as the colossal television was plugged into their room, they gobbled up their mushroom risotto like starved animals—Kosuke can’t blame them for that last one, though. She’d all but burst into the kitchen after dinner and begged the head chef for the recipe.

Even at breakfast, Hitsuji doesn’t have a care in the world, and Minami is just that sort of quiet where everything is not 100% okay but asking will put her on the spot. Kosuke makes a mental note to call around the parents of Minami’s old friends to see if they can get a playdate together. Despite the giant table and the shimmering chandelier and Hitsuji not even able to pronounce what they’re eating (quiche, not _keech)_ it feels almost normal. Kosuke finds herself giving genuine smiles. They won’t be heading to school just yet, but they will be going to summer daycare provided on campus.

Later, as they step out of the limousine, Kosuke almost wants them to stay and keep her company. They can’t, of course, and she puts on a smile and waves them goodbye, until she’s whisked away to her first day of college.

Which goes…surprisingly well!

Oh, it’s weird. Any stupor she’d had with the mansion is nothing compared to the buildings of Ouran University. Its splendor tipped into cartoony. Every stone and brick is pink while somehow still looking regal. There are Greek pillars holding up the roofs that stretch high above her head, a clocktower that could rival Big Ben. The flower bushes outside are in full bloom, and there’s not a brown bud to be found on them. There’s not a speck on any window, no dust on any surface—nothing out of place but the flower petals dusted on the outside walkways. Even the students are shockingly perfect. Kosuke has never seen so many beautiful people in one place before.

She doesn’t let it all distract her—she pays attention to her professors’ words. The classes are fine, though her culinary course would not start until later. Her professors know what they’re talking about and teach well. She just has no passion for any of it. Human Resource Management…not her heart’s content.

Even better, she’s not hounded by any students to talk of—well, anything, her family included. Kosuke has never been the shrinking violet in school, but she keeps to herself just this once. Her longest conversation of the day is just asking directions from a passing student.

(Oh, and the cafeteria— _heaven on Earth._ Shigeo has covered all of her meal costs and she will use that every single day. How has she survived so long without ever tasting beef wellington?)

Best of all, she sees neither Tamaki nor Kyoya after all. For a few hours, Kosuke walks from class to class, books in her satchel, almost feeling like a normal college student. She never thought she was going to miss school.

Could it really be so easy? Maybe all she has to do is keep her head low. If no one talks to her, she can’t make a fool of herself.

So…the day goes well. Her final lecture ends, and all that’s left is to return home.

She might just be able to do this.

As she’s walking down the hall, unsure of what she’ll do for the rest of the day, a voice calls, “Excuse me!”

It’s a woman Kosuke _thinks_ she saw in one of her classes earlier today. She’s smiling, though a bit out of breath, as she jogs up to her.

“Are you Kosuke Amida?” Kosuke nods, though the new name will leave a bitter taste in her mouth for the rest of her life. “Great! Could you come with me? There are still a few things we need to figure out, with you being a new student.”

 _Well, boring paperwork will be the least of my problems lately._ “Oh, okay. Lead the way.”

Kosuke should make a note of how to get to the office they’re heading to. It’s embarrassing how many times she managed to get lost today. She tries to memorize all the turns they make, but she’s already forgotten by the time they make it there.

She has to say, she thought it would be in another building. Not that it really matters.

This does:

_“SURPRISE!”_

Kosuke somehow manages not to scream. She does jump about ten miles into the air, though.

Who are these people? Why are they throwing a surprise party for her? Kosuke has no idea. But there are a lot of them. A room packed wall-to-wall with strangers, smiling and applauding, looking so friendly but unfamiliar regardless.

This isn’t a high-society propriety thing—Kosuke could be dirt poor and she’d still have no idea how to respond. Her first idea is to smile, which doesn’t hold. Arms pull her in to the thick of it all. Everyone starts talking all at once. She’s surrounded in seconds flat.

“It’s so great to meet you!”

“Congratulations!”

“You’re such a lucky girl!”

Kosuke finally gets the sense to start responding with thank-yous, but feels no better for it. Of everything she’d been afraid of going into today, this is a nightmare she never saw coming. She feels dizzy.

“Hey, hey!” A voice calls from deeper in, followed by another adding, “Best friends here. We got first dibs!”

The dozens of arms start guiding her in as easily as a leaf caught in a stream. It’s starting to be too much all at once, until finally she’s stopped before—surprise! Even more strangers!

There are five of them, though it seems that the ones who called out were a pair of twins. Slender in frame with brown eyes so light they were almost bronze, they are just as devastatingly handsome as every other man in the building. Though Kosuke notes with curiosity that one has rich chestnut hair while his brother’s was somewhere close to strawberry blond.

“Been waiting for you,” says the dark-haired one. “Welcome to the club!”

All Kosuke can do is stupidly parrot, “The club?”

“Huh?” The next to speak up is a shorter boy with huge brown eyes and hair the color of honey. He can’t be older than fourteen, to Kosuke’s immense confusion. “Did he not tell you about us?”

The other twin smirks and declares, “We’re the Host Club.”

With his brother, they chirp, “Your life just got a million times better.”

 _Oh!_ Kosuke realizes…and exclaims aloud, much to the twins’ pleasure. Though it’s not much relief, at least she can figure who organized all this. Maybe she should’ve known Tamaki was going to go over the moon for this.

Which means that he knows now. Oh, the conversation they will have…She is not excited for it in the slightest.

“Ringing a bell now?” The brunette twin chuckles.

“Yes…Um—I’m sorry, I didn’t think I was going to be meeting you today.” Kosuke looks between the twins, trying to find their names in her memories. “Hikaru and Kaoru…Hi…His…?”

“Hitachiin. I’m Kaoru—” The blonde twin points at himself, then is brother. “—and he’s Hikaru.”

Kosuke looks to the others. She’s only just now noticing the very tall man with dark eyes and dark hair—striking, but with a calmness that borders on eerie. He blinks coolly at her when she turns to him. “Mori? Or Hani?”

The young boy is delighted—though Kosuke remembers now that he is not a young boy at all and is, in fact, older than _her_ —and says, “I’m Hani! This is Reiko.”

The woman behind him simply raises a hand and waves. Her straight auburn hair is so dark it’s almost black, and her lips are painted red with such precision that Kosuke is jealous. She wonders how old she is. She must be close to her fiancé’s age, but from looks alone, Kosuke could place her anywhere between fifteen and twenty-two. She’s never met a person so… _ambiguously-aged_ before.

There are five of them total, plus Tamaki and Haruhi, that makes seven. Wait, no, Reiko is not considered part of the Host Club. There _are_ seven, though. Isn’t the one missing a close friend of Tamaki’s? It’s K-something…

“I’m Kosuke,” she greets them all, and tries to give a genuine enough smile. It’s hard when it feels like every pair of eyes in the room is trained on her. “It’s nice to meet all of you. Tamaki talks about you a lot.”

For just a second, the twins’ smiles slip, and they give each other curious looks. From the corner of her eye, she thinks that Hani shares a similar one with Reiko. But they shrug it off just as quickly, and Hikaru hums, “Well, congrats on the husband. Kyoya can be scary sometimes, not gonna lie, but he’s a good guy.”

“I’m really curious, what is romantic-Kyoya like?” Kosuke imagines Kaoru is talking to her, but he’s turned his eyes upward in a far-away, thoughtful expression. “I’m trying to imagine it, but it’s not clicking.”

 _Well, if Kyoya is a friend of theirs, and they’re friends of Tamaki, maybe Kyoya isn’t that bad after all?_ Elite image aside, Kosuke wants to make a fair first impression, and she knows badmouthing their friend at the first opportunity will do the exact opposite. “He’s…Very polite. I mean, I don’t know much about him because we just met, but he’s—very nice.”

Kaoru says something to his brother that sounds a bit like “neither of them are poets, huh?” but she can’t make it out clearly. While he does so, Hani asks her, “Do you want some cake?”

“Oh, I think I’m good—”

“Hold on, I’ll go get you some!”

“I—” But he’s already zooming away into the throng. “—Okay.”

As she watches him go, Kosuke catches the eyes of several students looking back at her, and quickly looks away. This feels a thousand times worse than the strangers’ engagement party. Kosuke is _not_ dressed like the rest of them, there is _no one_ she recognizes (not even a father she’d just met,) and worst of all, she can’t blend in at all. She’s not just another partygoer, she’s the celebrated.

Actually, no, there should be two people she knows: her fiancé who may or may not hate her, and Tamaki, supposedly.

Speaking of: “I’m going to take a guess and say Tamaki threw this party?”

“Spoken like someone who knows him well,” chuckles Hikaru. His amusement is genuine, but there’s a little hesitance, like he’s confused about something still. “Yeah, him and Fuyumi both. She should be around here somewhere.”

Kosuke turns to look, but all she gets is another sweep of strangers. Three people, then.

She’s brought back in by Kaoru chiming in, “Fuyumi is his older sister. Have you met yet?”

“We have! She and her husband both came to dinner with us. I’m happy they did; they’re really friendly.”

Hikaru chuckles, which startles her. “Sounds like you like Fuyumi and Tetsu more than Kyoya.”

Kaoru just laughs with him. “Guess he isn’t a romantic, after all!”

They’re joking in good faith, Kosuke knows, but it still worries her. She can’t act to save her life. Her less-than-glowing response to their friend may have already painted an image of her in her mind. Does it matter that much, though? If Kosuke remembers correctly, the Hitachiins run a fashion line, which doesn’t sound like it would ever have anything to do with medical technology…but what does she know about all of this?

“I didn’t mean for it to come out that way,” she tries to laugh, and cuts it off with a cough. “Um…Is Kyoya here?”

“He is!” Hani bounds back into view with a slice of cake on a plate. It looks lovely, maybe lemon-basil, but _wow_ it is a thick slice. As thick as her hand is long. He hands it to her, and she scrambles to hold it full-palm on the bottom. “He and Tamaki are talking about something.”

_So a friend of Tamaki’s, too. That’s probably good._

“We already know everything about Kyoya,” Hikaru suddenly scoffs. Kosuke doesn’t get a single second to brace herself before he throws an arm around her shoulder. She’s _very_ lucky not to send a one-pound slice of cake to the floor. Wasting food is her worst nightmare. “What we want to know about is _you._ ”

Kaoru does the same, so now Kosuke is trapped in a Hitachiin arm-cage with no chance of escape. “Yeah, what are you majoring in? What year are you in? How are you liking Ouran?”

“Business Resource Management, first year. Ouran is… _Wow.”_ Kosuke looks upward. Given she didn’t take ballet for long, but her childhood studio didn’t have three crystal chandeliers on the ceiling. She wonders if Ouran dancers get special million-yen shoes, too, because just the feeling of the glossy boards under her feet is making her toes sting. “Very ‘wow.’”

Reiko narrows her eyes at her, not unkindly. “I can’t tell if that’s a good ‘wow’ or a bad ‘wow.’”

“Oh, the campus is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong! And the professors are very…Well, professional. It’s just.” Kosuke would scratch at the back of her neck if her hands weren’t preoccupied and her shoulders weren’t taken. “I may or may not have gotten lost six times today.”

“Yeah, you’re going to want to read up on the school map, or you’re a goner.” Hikaru finally withdraws his arm from her. He’s reaching for something in his breast pocket. “Hey, would you happen to know what your waistline measure is?”

_Well._

_That’s an icebreaker._

Kosuke blinks a few times as she tries to discern if she really just heard him ask that. He doesn’t say anything further. “Do I have to ask you to explain?”

“Oh, we’ll be designing your wedding dress for you. It’s fine to not know. Most people don’t. Arms up, please.”

Then Kaoru is behind her and lifting her arms up marionette-style. Only then does she realize Hikaru has pulled a length of measuring tape out and is reaching for her. She snaps her arms back down as much as she can without wasting the cake. “I don’t think I’m comfortable being sized in front of a crowd.”

“Would you like to be sized in private?”

“I’m starting to see why Tamaki talks about you the way he does.” Kaoru tries to move her arms again, and this time Kosuke snaps in probably too much of a mother-scolding-her-child tone. She even wags her fork at him _. “Eh-eh-eh!”_

Well, so much for first impressions. At least 3/5 of this group seems amiable enough. Hani is watching her struggle with her cake, though, and since she hasn’t taken a single bite anyway, she just hands it over to him. He is delighted.

Hikaru and Kaoru huff and puff, but the measuring tape goes away, and Hikaru tries to move on. “So Kyoya says you’re from Karuizawa. Is it weird, going from commoner to all this?”

“It can be…a lot to take in, I’ll admit. But I’m trying to—Did you just say ‘commoner’?”

“We’ve been to Karuizawa before,” Kaoru goes on. He’s not looking at her, though; he’s looking at her arm with odd attention…and she realizes he’s probably trying to take a mental measurement. “It’s nice, I guess. Tiny, though.”

Kosuke raises the arm he’s staring at and snaps her fingers. He smirks back at her, but to his _tiny_ credit, he looks like he’s at least trying not to look guilty. Oh, she’s going to keep an eye on these two. _“Thanks.”_

“We went to a pension owned by one of Haruhi’s dad’s friends.” Hani has already eaten half the cake slice in record time and Kosuke is terrified. “Do you know her? Her name’s Misuzu!”

“Misuzu? Yeah, her—Please slow down, you’ll choke.” Hani takes this very easily and even lets out a contrite ‘okay’ and puts on the brakes. “Misuzu’s pension isn’t that far from where my family’s restaurant was. Is.”

“Ooh, you have a restaurant? Which one?”

“It’s called The Lily Bowl.” It’s hard, switching from past to present tenses. It’s still their home, the sign still hangs out front, but it hasn’t been a restaurant in over a year. Suddenly Kosuke is struck with the image of the dining room tables filled with customers, the air filled with the buzz of conversation and the clinking of silverware. It’s a bittersweet nostalgia. “It’s just a little place. Not much…but we served good food.”

“What about sweets?” Hani smiles a smile as sugary as the cake he’s eating. Kosuke feels a cavity coming on just looking at it. “Did you guys make desserts and all that?”

“My mother made all the desserts.” Before she can stop herself, Kosuke is rambling. “Strawberry shortcake, brownies, cheesecake, apple pie, tarts…It all kind of depended on the season, but sometimes around Christmas she’d make things like pumpkin pie and peppermint bark and—I—” Kosuke coughs. “Sorry.”

Hani does not mind. In fact, he’s now looking at Kosuke like she’s some kind of goddess descended down to visit the mortals. _“Do you know how to make all of that?”_

“Oh, no! No, no, no, no, no!” Kosuke flits her hands around and shakes her head, as if by just bringing up desserts alone, she’s put the sweet boy— _man_ —in danger of getting poisoned by her toxic baking. “I’m not being modest, I really, _really_ cannot bake.”

“Oh.” All hope fades away from Hani’s eyes. They’re now so filled with disappointment that guilt curls up in Kosuke’s gut, even though she knows she’s trying to save his life. “Okay…”

Hikaru looks at her with interest—genuine interest, not I’m-trying-to-figure-out-your-bust-size interest. “So are you guys closed, or something? I mean, you’re using the past tense a lot.”

They’re watching her, and everyone else is watching her, and everyone’s listening in on what she’s going to say next. Kosuke has been carrying this weight around for over a year now and she does not know any way, shape, or form of saying, “My parents died,” without bringing the atmosphere crashing down. You don’t say that in the middle of a casual conversation. And besides…It always makes her mouth dry and bitter afterwards.

“We closed, yeah.” The dryness threatens to come, and she eyes the punch some of them are sipping on with jealousy. She would go get some herself if it didn’t mean running headfirst into the sea of strangers. “Some—financial stuff happened. We couldn’t stay open.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” frets Hani. “I wish we’d come when you were open.”

“What do you guys do now?” Kaoru hums in thought. “I mean, no offense, but in a town as small as Karuizawa, I can’t think of many other good business ventures.”

Reiko finally breaks her long silence to quip, “Karuizawa isn’t that small.”

The twins ignore her. Hikaru goes on, “Well, now that she’s heiress to one of the biggest medical companies in the world, they probably don’t have to do anything anymore. Heck, they could move out of Karuizawa, come out here to Tokyo.”

“Kyoya kind of told us a little about what happened,” Kaoru tells her, and when Kosuke can’t stop her head from snaking back just so, he quickly adds, “Nothing bad, nothing bad! Just, like…Your dad didn’t really know about you and took you in.”

“Speaking of, is he coming?” Hikaru looks around the room as if Shigeo may already be here. He’s completely oblivious to the chill that runs up Kosuke’s spine at the sheer idea that her father may be in the room right now. “I mean, I know sending an invite to Mr. Ootori was useless, but what about him?”

“I’ve met Mr. Amida a few times,” Hani chimes in. “He’s kind of serious, but he seems nice, so maybe he’ll show up after all.” And suddenly a thought comes upon Hani, and he gasps, “Oh, no, did we invite her mother?”

Reiko looks at Kosuke without a single change of expression, yet somehow looks apologetic. “We didn’t know much about you, so we couldn’t get in contact with her.”

Kaoru gives them all a bit of a hard side-eyed look, and tries to whisper from the corner of his mouth—and doing so to four other people means Kosuke hears every word he’s saying. “She may not want to come, you guys.”

Hani frowns, almost aghast. “Why not?”

“Um…Maybe because she and Mr. Amida have been divorced and separated for, like, twenty years?” Kaoru seems to realize as soon as he says it that there’s no way that Kosuke _didn’t_ hear him, and looks a bit contrite.

“Yeah, but her daughter’s getting hitched, wouldn’t she want to come to her party?” Hikaru turns to Kosuke as if this is the most casual conversation ever. “Do you want to call her? We’ll probably be here for a while, maybe she can still make it.”

Kosuke has been listening to all of them talk and talk and talk, head going between them like she’s watching a tennis match, and every sentence they say bounces around in her mind like a pachinko ball. She should be relieved that Kyoya and Tamaki didn’t tell them her life story, she guesses, but she can’t just keep letting them think her mother is still alive. How does she correct them? What does she do?

She settles on coughing again, and asking, “I’m sorry, but could I go get some punch real quick? I’m—parched.”

Hani happily offers, “I’ll go get you some!”

“No, no, I’ll get it myself.” She turns and walks away before anyone can protest further.

The twins call, “Other way!”

So she walks past them again with her head hung low. “Thanks.”

The dizziness brought on by talk of her mother fades away the more she walks, to be replaced by the dizziness brought on by being surrounded by strangers celebrating her engagement to yet another stranger. She knows that not all of them are looking at her; this is a party, they’re mostly chatting with others, laughing, joking. But she feels like she’s being watched the whole way to the punch table. She thinks she’ll get a moment of respite when she takes up a glass cup, but the hope is for not.

“Hi,” a brunette chirps at her as soon as she comes. “It’s nice to meet you! I hope you don’t mind the surprise party.”

“It’s—” Kosuke bites back a sigh. As much as she dislikes it, all this glitz and glamor for a stranger is…nice. Maybe they all mean well. “It’s really nice of all of you to throw a party for me. For us. Thank you!”

“Of course! Oh, Kazukiyo! Kazukiyo! Come here!”

She waves her hand up into the air, and a bespectacled man not that much taller than her steps out of the crowd. When he comes closer, she gives him a warm smile and lays her hand on his arm—with the movement, Kosuke sees the glints of rings on their fingers. She’s happy for them. She’s jealous of them.

“Miss Amida,” Kazukiyo greets her, a bit surprised. “It’s wonderful to meet you! We may not know each other, but I’ve always respected Kyoya, so I’m happy that we’ll be attending school together.”

It’s stilted and awkward, but sincere, and Kosuke smiles. “Thanks.” Should she be making small talk? She doesn’t want to look like a scared rabbit in a cage. “What do you two major in?”

“We’re both in law,” Momoka answers.

“Oh! Are you in the same classes as Haruhi?”

“You’ve met Haruhi?” But Kazukiyo just goes on, “We were. Still are, I suppose. We don’t see her that much anymore now that she’s studying in the States. I think she flies back sometime next week?”

“What about you? What are you majoring in?” asks Momoka.

“Business Resource Management.”

“You’re heiress to Amida Health now, right?” It’s neither Momoka nor Kazukiyo who says it. It’s another stranger who pops out of the throng in an instant. “Oh, you’re going to be set. Not to raise my nose at my uncle’s company, but Amida Health’s business model is impenetrable. Is it true that they’re going into home products? I thought Mr. Shigeo turned down the idea of trying it again.”

“Well.” _Didn’t he say something to Mr. Ootori about some kind of heartbeat device or something? Why didn’t you look at the papers, idiot?!_ “I think some ideas are being bounced around, but I don’t think I can say anything solid just yet.”

It’s just ambiguously noncommittal enough for the woman to accept it. But then here comes two more students fluttering around her.

“Have you guys made any plans for the wedding yet?” asks a man. “Shigure Flora would be more than happy to provide all the flowers you guys will need.”

“Do you already have friends here?” trills a girl. “Yes or no, you’re absolutely invited to my birthday gala next month. Say you’ll come!”

Kosuke swallows. She’s feeling boxed in. “I—I’ll come.”

“Hey, now that you’re here, can you answer a question? Obviously Kyoya won’t be the sole inheritor of Ootori Medical, but with you as sole heiress of Amida Health, how are you guys going to be partnered? Will you and Kyoya own the business together, or will Kyoya stay with Ootori Medical while you’re running Amida Health? Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kyoya tries to do both, he’s always managed to do the impossible…”

“Do you already have plans for Amida Health? What about branching off to other countries?”

A girl sighs, forlorn, “Alright, I’m embarrassed that I don’t know that much about the company. What business model is it?”

Okay, this time, all eyes _are_ on her.

Why didn’t she read the stupid hieroglyphics? She knew the test was coming and she still didn’t study. What does she do? What does she say?

_This is it. This is where you sign your title as ‘Dumb Pauper Who Has No Idea What She’s Doing.’_

It’s already coming. As Kosuke stands there, mouth gaping open and close like a fish, the smiles start to flicker the longer she stays silent. People start to glance at each other. She can see in their eyes that they’re realizing she doesn’t know what to say—the heiress of Amida Health can’t even say two words about it.

Maybe she should just be honest and say she’s new to this. Go ahead and get it out of the way and deal with whatever dismissal or pity follows.

Then someone puts their hand on her shoulder—and at first she jumps, unsure if she’s about to snap at them to back off or put on a smile or _what._

Then she gets a look at who it is. She shouldn’t be surprised, given the party is for both of them, but she still is.

“There you are,” Kyoya says, _warmly._ He’s smiling. This is—what, the second time she’s seen him do so? It looks genuine. Emphasis on “looks.” “I would have warned you about the party, but I didn’t know about it myself.”

It’s probably for the best that someone speaks up, because Kosuke was definitely about to spend another laughable amount of time blinking and gaping. Momoka happily greets him with, “Kyoya! You’re finally here. I hope you don’t mind us snagging her before you could see her.”

“Not at all. I’m happy to see her being greeted so easily.” Kyoya looks back at her—she never took her eyes off of him, but she starts when she’s caught. “You said you don’t handle crowds that easily, but you seem to be doing fine to me.”

“Wh—” That’s all she gets to say.

“Oh, no!” Momoka grabs onto her fiancé’s arm and tugs. The poor guy was taking a sip of punch, and just about chokes at the sudden lurch. When Kosuke looks at everyone else, they’re sharing Momoka’s expression of horror and guilt. “We didn’t mean to crowd you! I’m so sorry!”

“Look, don’t worry about it,” one of the other men says as he’s walking backwards. “We can talk later! Just try to enjoy the party.”

“I…” It’s no good. Or it’s no bad? Kosuke gets what she wanted, she supposes. The crowd suddenly disbands from her, giving her enough room to finally breathe again, even if it’s standing next to Kyoya. “Thank you?”

Kyoya just keeps smiling, but not really _at_ her anymore. If she thought she was being watched before, that was nothing compared to now. There’s no missing how many people are now watching them with warm gazes— _oh, look at together, so cute!_ Kosuke also does not miss that one or two women in the crowd have jealousy on their faces. Some even teeter towards heartbreak. Geez…

“I didn’t know you were starting classes today,” Kyoya says. Still smiling.

Kosuke takes a sip of punch—did his eye just twitch?—and marvels that the drink alone tastes like a million yen. But more importantly, Kyoya is actually talking to her… _even though_ there’s something about him now that’s making her uneasy. His smile is kind and his voice is easy, but is she wrong for feeling like it’s somehow fake?

 _Maybe he’s just trying to start over,_ she thinks. _Heck, maybe he regrets what happened at dinner. Go with it._ So Kosuke smiles back, maybe not as expertly, and says, “We managed to get my schedule figured out pretty quickly.”

“Business Administration and Management?”

“Yeah. Wait—no. Human Resource Management.” Kosuke takes another sip of punch—if nothing else, she needs to get her major down pat. “It’s nice. More math than I was expecting…” She hesitates. “Did you have classes today?”

“I did. I was half-expecting to see you in one of them.” She doesn’t miss the edge that creeps into his voice, she just doesn’t know what it is. “How have you been settling in?”

“Fine. We moved into one of Sh—Dad’s estates here in Tokyo.” Kosuke swirls the last bit of pink punch around in her glass. Does she save it so she can do something with her hands, or down it now to get rid of the bitterness the word ‘Dad’ has left in her mouth? Why are the glasses so small? “The kids are at daycare right now.” _Oh._ Kosuke’s eyes flutter when the realization hits. “I should call my chauffeur to tell him I’m at a party.”

_What about the kids? Are they going to be okay in the mansion by themselves, surrounded by strangers? I don’t think Shigeo is there, but what if he is…?_

Thankfully, Kosuke keeps herself from babbling all of this out loud, but as she digs into her pocket for her phone, she looks up at Kyoya again to see if he’s showing anymore annoyance with her—disorder. But he’s no longer looking at her.

He’s looking off into the crowd, and curious, Kosuke follows his gaze. It takes a second to pick out Fuyumi from the crowd—as elegant as Kosuke remembers her, dressed in lavender. Fuyumi is smiling at her brother. No, she’s smiling at both of them. Warm and almost satisfied.

In reality, all of this looking only takes place in a second. Maybe less. Then Kosuke feels fingers brushing against her own, and startles before she hears Kyoya say, “Here, let me.”

He turns back to the punch bowl. As he pours more into her glass, not spilling so much as a drop back into the bowl, Kosuke’s fingers twitch despite herself. That’s the first time they’ve touched, she realizes. They didn’t even shake hands when they met at the dinner. Her heart isn’t exactly fluttering at the thought.

As he hands her drink back—only further feeding the delighted eyes on them—he suddenly says, “Can I talk to you in private for a minute?”

Kosuke doesn’t get much of it, neither excited nor worried. ~~Maybe he’ll apologize~~ Maybe they can talk about what happened at dinner. That would be nice.

She starts to say _yes,_ but then she swears she hears her name being called out. Kyoya frowns when she looks away to find the source, but then he, too, has his ears perked to attention. Kosuke can’t even say if she recognizes the voice calling her name. The crowd has started up another excited babble.

Finally, there’s a break, a familiar face almost bursting through the crowd, looking right at her.

“Haruhi!”

Haruhi says some quick _excuse me’s_ and _nice to see you’s_ as she comes, and finally the people start to part for her. Surprise wears off quickly. _It makes sense for her to be here, especially if Tamaki is._ Still, with the radio silence on the brunette’s end, Kosuke feels justified for being taken aback—but she’s instantly relieved, nonetheless. Haruhi also isn’t dressed in triple-figure clothing, just a casual long-sleeved dress with tights and flats.

When she catches Haruhi’s eye, though, the relief halts. Haruhi looks…not _angry,_ but not happy. Somehow Kosuke just knows that she has to tell Kosuke something and she has to tell her _now._ And given the last time they talked, Kosuke was still living in her little restaurant-house in Karuizawa and not a multi-floor estate in Tokyo, she can imagine what it’s about.

Finally Haruhi is just ten feet, nine feet, eight feet away…

…and her beloved fiancé sweeps in out of nowhere to pluck her off the ground.

“Haruhi!” Tamaki is completely unaware of (or desensitized to) Haruhi’s little squeaks of alarm as he squeezes the life out of her. He also may or may not be aware that he’s gently swinging her from side to side, leaving her legs dangling. “You didn’t respond to my messages! I didn’t know if you were coming…”

“I was busy,” Haruhi croaks out. Finally she manages to pull her head back enough to exclaim, “Tamaki, I need to talk to Kosuke!”

“Oh.” And just like that, the smile is gone and Tamaki is gently setting her back down. He looks to Kosuke and smiles again, but for once, it’s not beaming bright. It’s almost nervous. “Hi, Kosuke.”

Kosuke sticks up a hand and murmurs, “Hello.” She’s trying to think of what else to say, but every thought that comes to mind gets cancelled out. She should explain that Kyoya is her fiancé—no, wait they already know that. She should introduce him—no, Tamaki already knows him, and Haruhi might, too. She should—probably explain to them why she is in this situation to begin with.

Haruhi steps toward her, but hesitates as she looks at Kyoya. Kosuke can’t read the silent expression the two of them are sharing. Is there some level of distress she’s detecting? Haruhi she may understand just because she probably has _no idea what is going on,_ but why Kyoya?

Haruhi gently takes hold of her hand and whispers, “Can we talk for just a minute?”

Kosuke nods before she can even really think about it. Haruhi starts to gently tug her away, back toward the opening doors of the dance studio, shouldering between the party guests. As they stumble forward, Kosuke not sure what she’s going to say first, she turns back around to look at Kyoya and Tamaki. Their images become more and more obscured as faces and bodies move into view, but she thinks that Tamaki looks a bit concerned and Kyoya…upset.

With just a few seconds to go until they’re in private, Kosuke runs over everything she is going to say. She thinks she has the script down pat. She thinks she knows how this conversation will go.

* * *

Nevermind.

“Wait, he’s _that_ Kyoya?”

 _“Yes!”_ Haruhi grabs Kosuke’s shoulders and gives her a little shake, as if trying to wake her up. “Did you not put two and two together once you heard what his name was?!”

“I _forgot_ what his name was! I just remembered it was K-something…! Also, please forgive me, but I’ve kind of been in a permanent state of shock for the past week!”

Haruhi takes in a deep, deep breath and pushes the bangs out of her eyes. For some reason Kosuke feels guilty even though she can’t figure out why.

In hindsight, it was probably very, _very_ dumb of her to not realize that Kyoya Ootori—her fiancé, youngest son of Yoshio Ootori, member of the Ootori family, who own _the_ most prestigious medical company in Japan—also just so happens to be Kyoya Ootori, Tamaki’s best friend and fellow member of the Ouran Host Club.

Who has known Haruhi and Tamaki both for years. Because they are best friends.

Does it bother Kosuke? Well…She guesses not. In the end, it doesn’t really change anything, it doesn’t matter that much. They’re still engaged at the end of the day. And like she’d told herself before, maybe him being friends with Tamaki and Haruhi spoke well of him. It made more sense for them to even know each other in the first place. At least they’d all gone to the same high school; Kosuke met Haruhi because her house just so happened to be the one of all others in Karuizawa Haruhi took refuge in during a rainstorm.

It’s just that the likelihood of this happening is nothing short of _mind-boggling._ Kosuke and Haruhi hang out during a thunderstorm and from then on Kosuke is friends with both her and Tamaki—okay, sure. Her estranged father appears for the first time in her life to offer her heirdom of his prestigious medical company in exchange for an arranged marriage—not _normal,_ but unrelated.

But the fact that her arranged fiancé _just so happens_ to have already been close with her friends, whom she’d already met under complete happenstance? She’s starting to wonder if this was all some kind of set up, because the world doesn’t just spin in that pattern.

It’s also odd to imagine that the guy who stormed out of their first dinner and made it clear from the get-go he thought her rather pathetic, and certainly unworthy to be heiress to Amida Health, was a longtime companion of the best friend who scolded her for not mentioning that it was her birthday and said best friend’s fiancé, who hugged her to death every time they met.

Is this the weirdest thing that’s happened to her so far?

No.

So she will just—deal with it.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner? Why haven’t you answered my texts?”

“Because it was a lot to take in! First you tell me you’re getting engaged, then you’re telling me you’re moving to Tokyo, then _Tamaki_ tells me that the guy you’re getting engaged to is Kyoya. I didn’t think this was a conversation _not_ to be had in person.” Haruhi stops and starts to twirl her fingers backwards. “Okay, just—rewind for a second here. Explain to me everything that has happened.”

Kosuke does…but finds herself leaving certain details out.

She tells Haruhi the reason that Shigeo came to her was because he wanted to arrange her in a marriage with Kyoya. That now she’s training to be the one-day owner of Amida Health, and now she and Hitsuji and Minami are living with Shigeo in the estate in Tokyo. This is more or less going to be her life from here on out—no longer living an average life in a mountain town, but forevermore wining and dining with the richest people in Japan.

What she _doesn’t say_ is that she agreed to this because she was— _is_ scared. She’s never once told Haruhi about the loan shark and she won’t now. When she says she accepted Shigeo’s offer, she doesn’t say it’s because she’d be wracked with guilt if she turned down the opportunity to have Hitsuji and Minami lead a normal…well, not normal, but _stable_ life, where they won’t have to worry about lack of money dooming their futures. She tells Haruhi she agreed because why not?

She thinks that maybe it’s because, if she tells Haruhi why she agreed to it, having Haruhi confirm that she’s still made a terrible choice may break her mental state.

More honestly, though…

She spent years and years and years sitting around not doing anything to help her family. Not only is she going to refuse to be reprimanded for all but saving them, she’s not going to take any pity when she knows deep down—deep, deep, _deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep_ down—that she made the right choice. She has a distaste for pity now.

“We’ll be provided for for the rest of our lives, Haruhi,” she tries to say even as the brunette is boggling at her. “A cashier job wasn’t going to keep us all going forever…It wasn’t keeping us going in the first place.”

“Sure, at the cost that you’re marrying a _stranger._ How could you even trust your dad? He’s a stranger, too!”

“Because there was something in it for him,” Kosuke spits out before she can catch herself. She sighs. “I’m not saying it isn’t weird that he hunted me down just to marry me off, I’m just saying that he’s been pretty straightforward with everything. And it’s not like he forced me into it, I _agreed.”_ When Haruhi’s response is to simply shake her head side-to-side, she insists, “Look, Haruhi…It’s fine. I mean—what’s the harm in all of this? Oh, no, we have to live in a big mansion for the rest of our lives and eat caviar while I work at a super-profitable company! The horror!”

“If it was fine, I wouldn’t need to be convinced.” Haruhi runs her hands down her face. “Life isn’t just about being rich and comfortable. Didn’t you say you wanted to try and run a restaurant one day?”

Yes, she did. It was a fantasy Kosuke thought about often, and one that she just _maybe_ thought may actually happen one day. Even if it was just running a tiny little food stand, being able to do the thing she loves and make a profit from it would be magical. But if it could be bigger, well, she hadn’t told anyone, but she had a secret folder under her bed of all the design ideas she’d come up with, from the layout of the building to the chairs in the dining room.

She probably won’t scrap the folder, but looking at it probably won’t make her happy anymore.

“Yes, I did. I would also like to live in a huge mansion with an indoor pool and a—Bad analogy. It probably wasn’t even going to happen anyway. I would have to wait _years_ just so the kids are old enough for me to go to college, even assuming that I—” She swallows. She almost slipped there. “Don’t they say you shouldn’t make your passion your career, anyway?”

“What about Kyoya?” Haruhi asks, and even she winces as she says it. This must be so, _so_ much weirder for her than it is for Kosuke. She can only imagine what it’s like to have two people in your lives who have never so much as stood in the same room suddenly becoming engaged out of nowhere. “We _also_ talked about how you’d start dating again when the kids got older.”

Yes. They did. Kosuke always hated those talks. Not because being honest with Haruhi was ever bad. Venting out the pressure building up in her chest always felt nice. But every time they talked about it, and every time they so much as implied Kohta’s existence, Kosuke left the conversation wondering if Haruhi thought she was pathetically lonely. She thinks she is. Sometimes she still cocoons herself in her blankets just to remember what it was like to be held when she fell asleep.

“Well…” Kosuke falls short on this one. She doesn’t know how to justify this even to herself.

“But you’re just okay marrying Kyoya? You’re okay being married to him for the rest of your life?”

The disbelief and near-worry in her voice has Kosuke asking, “Isn’t Kyoya one of your best friends?”

“I’m not saying he’s a bad person.” Haruhi looks off to the side, a bit distracted. “Don’t get me wrong, he can be patronizing sometimes—a _lot_ of the time, but he’s a good guy. But I know he’s a good guy because I _know_ him. You don’t. He’s a stranger to you.”

“Not anymore.” Harui’s glare borders on withering. “I mean, not technically.”

Haruhi takes a step forward, leans a little closer. “Can you look me in the eye and say you’re okay with marrying him?”

Again, venting always feels amazing after, but Kosuke knows that she just can’t this time. She can’t just spill out to Haruhi that she’s pretty sure Kyoya doesn’t like her at all, and she’s pretty sure she doesn’t like him at all. That she’s already mourned (and still mourning) the fact that she’ll never have another chance at a relationship again, for the rest of her life. That she knows all of three things about Kyoya even though they’re about to be married—and Kosuke’s stomach still roils at the idea of them sleeping in the same bed, eating their meals at the same table, her calling him _“my husband…”_

If she tells Haruhi, then what? She’s still going to do it. She just makes herself look like a woe-is-me damsel-in-distress who needs other people to take care of her.

What is she supposed to say, though? What is there to say that will convince Haruhi enough?

Then the idea hits her.

“Yes.”

She manages to say it while looking Haruhi right into her brown eyes. They flutter back at her for a moment as Haruhi leans back.

“Really?”

Kosuke knows she can’t act to save her life. But she _can_ act well enough to satisfy customers on a compensated date, to never let Miss Yukino get the notion that she knows why the window of her store got shattered. So _maybe_ she can convince Haruhi of this.

Granted, she’s not going to be able to look herself in the mirror for the next couple of days, but anyway…

“Yeah, really.” Kosuke tucks a stray lock behind her ear, averts her gaze. Bashful 101. Textbook. “I mean…I like him.”

Haruhi blinks a few more times. Kosuke can’t tell if it’s because people rarely like Kyoya so soon or if she’s just acting too un-Kosuke-like. “Enough to _marry him?”_

“I’m not saying it isn’t weird. It _is_ weird. If I could have met him under any other circumstances, I would have. But…” Kosuke brings her gaze back to Haruhi’s, but keeps it wavering, and holds her wrist with her other hand. “It’s just the circumstances that are strange. I’m okay with him.”

Haruhi keeps staring, though her eyes slide off Kosuke for a second. The arithmetic going through her head is almost visible. _“Why.”_

 _Take it home._ Kosuke shrugs. She looks away again. She doesn’t know if she can blush on command, but she tries anyway.

“He’s really—charming, I guess. Kind of like Tamaki, but he’s also really mature. ‘Cool,’ I guess?” Kosuke winds the toe of her shoe on the floor. “He’s really, really smart, too. I was really nervous when we first met, but he didn’t make me uncomfortable at all. I mean, for a second, I was worried that I was rambling waaay too much about school and the kids and cooking and all that, but he was listening the whole time.” Just for the cherry on top, she makes a little giggle as she says it. “I think he’s nice. Really nice.”

Finally she looks back to Haruhi to see if it’s worked.

She thinks it has. Haruhi is certainly not smiling, not looking at her with a warm smile like the partygoers behind the door. There is surprise still in her eyes, but not disbelief. Like for all the out-of-nowhere information that Kosuke and Tamaki have thrown in her face all this time, she never once figured that Kosuke would not only like Kyoya, but already have a crush on him. Which is exactly what Kosuke needs.

Haruhi’s hands drop from her hips. One comes up and rubs the back of her neck. “O…kay…”

Kosuke tips her head to the side, frowning. “‘Okay’?”

“I mean, I guess if you’re okay with it, then everything’s fine.” Haruhi lets out a sigh of all the air in her lungs. “But man _oh man_ is this bizarre.”

Kosuke lets out a huff of a laugh. “How do you think I feel?”

“It’s just…picturing you and Kyoya together…” Haruhi narrows her eyes, like the mental image is an eye chart and she’s trying to see the bottom row of letters. “I’m going to have to get used to it.”

Kosuke shrugs. She doesn’t know what else to do. “Sorry?”

Haruhi looks back to her again, eyes flickering over her face, then sighs once more. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that. I’m not trying to make you feel like you’ve done anything wrong. I was just worried about you, you know?” Haruhi crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ve been through a lot and I don’t want you going through anything else…I just thought maybe you got trapped in this or something.”

She’s neither wrong nor incorrect. Kosuke’s trapped, but she let herself be. Walked right into the cell with her hands unbound. Still, Kosuke puts on what she hopes is a reassuring smile. “I get it. I promise, I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. I think this is going to be good for us.”

“Right. Well…Listen. I’m going to be flying back to the U.S. in two weeks, so I’m not going to be around anymore. I’m still going to call you, of course, but now that you’re going to be attending school here at Ouran, Tamaki’s going to be around. And Kyoya.” Her voice drops a bit when she says it, still distasteful. Even more so when she asks, “Have you met the others yet?”

“The Host Club?” Haruhi nods dreadfully. “Hani and Reiko seem nice. Mori, too, just quiet. The twins tried to get my waist measurements.”

“Sounds about right,” groans Haruhi. “I’m sorry you’ll have to be here with them.”

“It’s fine…I guess.” Kosuke heaves a sigh of her own. “Thanks for being accepting. I’m sorry to throw this all at you.”

“Hey, don’t apologize to me. Just, uh—let me know if you need anything, I guess.” Haruhi glances back towards the doors. Throughout their conversation, the party has been humming inside, barely stifled. “You…want to go back in?”

“I guess it’d be rude to leave a party thrown for me.” Kosuke recalls how the party came to be in the first place. “What did Tamaki say?”

“Hm? Oh. He was surprised, mostly. I mean…can’t blame him.”

“Right. But what about me and Kyoya?”

“I think he was a little freaked out about that, too, but uh…” Haruhi looks up to the ceiling. It’s not quite an eye-roll. “He was trying to hide it, but he was excited. I can’t read his mind, but I think he was over the moon about his best friend marrying _my_ best friend. Like we’re all going to be one big happy family now.”

Haruhi makes a little scoffing laugh. Kosuke does the same, probably for a different reason.

“I think we should head back in now,” she says at last. Though she realizes as quickly as she says it that Haruhi has provided her a momentary haven from all the questions she has no answers to. Well, Kyoya did, too, but at least no one is watching now. She savors the moment. “I should make a good first impression.”

Haruhi gives her an encouraging but concerned smile, and pushes open the door for them. Immediately the sound comes out like a popped champagne bottle. Eyes fall back on them, mostly Kosuke, smiling and kind but foreign nonetheless. She remembers that these are just people—they’re not specifically here to humiliate her, they’re here to _celebrate_ her. Besides, she’ll probably be going to class with some of them, if not already.

As she sweeps the many, many faces, she catches a few familiars. Tamaki is talking animatedly to the Zukas. The twins are pointing at Reiko’s lace collar and asking something with genuine interest. Mostly, though, they are washed away in the tides.

For just a moment, purely by the split-second parting of the heads, her eyes land on Fuyumi again. For a second, she thinks that she’s looking at her, but then she realizes her gaze is just _slightly_ targeted to her left. She turns to look and thankfully doesn’t jump this time when she sees Kyoya standing there.

He was definitely waiting by the door for them. As Haruhi comes back in behind her, the two of them lock eyes. Haruhi’s jaw works side-to-side for a moment. Kyoya doesn’t so much as flinch. Finally Haruhi continues forth—and with a groan as the twins crow her name from the other side of the room.

Kosuke had forgotten for a minute that Kyoya had asked to talk to her before Haruhi had. As he opens his mouth to ask again, she just nods her head back to the hallway, door still open. He tugs his blazer tighter as he steps past her. Now unsure if she’d prefer the party or her fiancé, Kosuke shuts the door again.

It’s stupid that the same place feels different just thirty seconds later. Like for some reason Kosuke is noticing how large the hallway is, how her footsteps make soft echoes on the tiles. She also realizes that this is the first time they’ve been totally alone together. Just the two of them. Soon-to-be-husband and soon-to-be-wife.

Kyoya asks right away, “Did Haruhi explain everything to you?”

“Yeah, she did.” Kosuke rubs at the back of her neck. “I probably should’ve realized sooner. Tamaki talks about you all the time.”

His head tips just ever-so-slightly to the side for a split second, as if he’s in the same boat, but all he responds with is, “It’s probably for the best you already know them. Now you have a familiar face at Ouran.”

“Right.” Kosuke looks off to the side like she’s expecting to find anything there. She wonders what might have happened if Kyoya had come along to Karuizawa all the times Tamaki wanted him to. Maybe then the first impression wouldn’t be so abysmal. “You wanted to talk about something?”

“Yes, I did.”

Kyoya’s hand comes up to his collar, but only finds the top button. Did he forget he wasn’t wearing a tie? Awkward is a strange look on him. It’s like his body is physically refusing to be so.

“First of all, I wanted to apologize for how I behaved the other night. My behavior was unacceptable, especially leaving in the middle of dinner. I hope you can forgive me for that.”

Well.

It’s an apology.

A very obligatory, bureaucratic apology.

 _You’re probably just being bitter,_ Kosuke tells herself. She should be over the moon that he at least “doesn’t hate her enough” to apologize for what happened. Still…She’s not catching remorse in his voice so much as frustration. Less “Wow, I was a jerk the other night, I’m so sorry!” and more “Let me just get this out of the way.”

Okay, okay. It’s an apology. She’ll take it. “It’s okay.”

Instead of immediately going on with the “secondly,” Kyoya keeps on staring at her. The corners of his eyes narrow just so.

…Is he waiting for an apology, too?

For what?

Kosuke doesn’t get to ask. Kyoya lets out a quick sigh that’s miniscule but notable nonetheless and goes on. “Secondly, there are circumstances around our engagement that I believe we need to discuss.”

“You mean like the companies?”

“No. It’s more to do with my friends and family. Rather, _my_ family and _our_ friends.”

“Okay. Go on.”

Kyoya pushes his glasses just a bit further up his nose. “I know you’re well familiar with Tamaki now. Not so much with Fuyumi, but she’s made from a similar fabric. She cares a lot about everything. All the time. The other Hosts aren’t so much like that, but we are friends. We keep up with each others’ lives and we notice when something isn’t right. Are you following?”

“That does sound like Haruhi. I can hardly keep anything from her…” _Well, not ‘hardly.’_ Kosuke shakes her head, telling herself not to get off-track. “Go ahead?”

He folds his arms across his chest and keeps them there. “I’m afraid that my past behavior has given Fuyumi the unfortunate impression that I do not like you.”

The first question that comes to Kosuke’s mind is why that matters.

The question she asks instead, _before she can stop herself,_ is, “Do you?”

 _What the hell are you saying?!_ But her mouth won’t unglue itself to apologize. Kyoya blinks just once, which she guesses is his version of surprise, and then his eyes once again narrow ever-so-slightly. Part of her is guilty for throwing his apology back into his face. The other part of her is wondering how this is news.

He answers, with just a slight sigh to his words, “Like I said, my behavior has just given her that _impression._ ”

 _Wow, you could lead a course here at Ouran. How to Dodge the Question 101._ Kosuke blinks herself and doesn’t know if she even stops herself from doing it witheringly or not. “So what’s the problem?”

“ _The problem_ is that although my sister isn’t the rumoring type, she isn’t one to keep things to herself for long. When she gets worried, she gets _very_ worried, and eventually she will tell someone why. I imagine that someone might be Tamaki; they’re friends.” Kyoya looks off to the side a bit, in thought. “Assuming that one of the others doesn’t figure it out themselves. Haruhi, probably. She has more intuition.”

This time, Kosuke can’t help but squint at him. “Can’t we just reassure them otherwise?”

“It’s a losing battle. Just trust me on that.”

Kosuke opens her mouth to reply…and remembers the conversation she’d just finished with Haruhi.

She had literally _just_ lied to Haruhi’s face that not only is she okay with marrying Kyoya, she already has a schoolgirl blushy-blushy crush on him. Which is probably going to cause a lot of confusion if Tamaki or Fuyumi vocally think the two of them dislike one another.

Um.

 _Should I tell him?_ Kosuke thinks. Then, _Yeah, I should probably tell him._

Kyoya is still staring, waiting for her response, except now his head is starting to tilt. She’s thinking and he doesn’t know why.

Kosuke settles with responding with, “I know why _I_ would have a problem with that, but before I say it…Why is it a problem for you?”

He hesitates for just a second longer, certainly not expecting this response, but he answers.

“I do not need—and I certainly don’t _want—_ Fuyumi, Tamaki, Haruhi, or anyone else worrying over us. Which they will. Vocally so.” Kyoya’s jaw works to the side. “I don’t know if anyone has told you as much, but my schedule between Ootori Medical and my education is very tight at the moment. I could do without the extra stress of convincing my loved ones that I’m not suffering.”

Wow.

_So we’re in the same boat after all._

It’s bitter, knowing this is the first time they’ve found anything resembling common ground. Kosuke looks him over head-to-toe. He is composed, blunt, and articulate. Borderline cold—or maybe not borderline. He couldn’t be further from Tamaki Suoh despite being his best friend. He couldn’t be further from _her._ Yet he also cannot stand being fussed over. He’s trying to prevent it from happening.

It’s good that they’re in the same boat, but damn near tragic that it’s over this. Kosuke once again wonders—with fear—if they’re going to be expected to have children. This is not going to be a nice “how Dad met Mom” story. Hell, she’s not going to be able to tell Hitsuji and Minami about any of this—her real, non-hypothetical siblings.

Kosuke runs her tongue over her teeth. “And we can’t just convince them.”

“We could try, but we won’t succeed.”

She can tell she’s waiting for her to give him the go-ahead to share the plan. The plan that she has already put into motion, which she lets him know by finally sighing, “I told Haruhi I like you.”

Kyoya answers, coolly, “She may be convinced for now, but you’d be surprised with how perceptive she can be—”

“I know how perceptive she is. That’s why I acted—very _carefully_ when I told her I liked you. And I don’t mean ‘eh, he’s okay.’ I mean _like_.”

Finally she gets a more typical surprise response. Kyoya’s head snakes back on his neck just so. His eyelids flutter. He asks (doesn’t bark, doesn’t exclaim, just kind of says it,) “Why.”

“Same reason as you. Well…not really…” Kosuke crosses her arms, too, but she can’t keep looking at him. She spins her toe on the floor again. She wishes the floor wasn’t so pristine that she saw her reflection. She sees right up close how pitiful she is. “Haruhi and Tamaki already worry about me a lot. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I get it. They’re my friends. I worry about them, too. We care about each other.”

Kyoya doesn’t interrupt. His silence is inviting her to go on.

“ _But_ I’ve been _worried_ about for a long, _long_ time now and I just…don’t want to give them another reason.” Kosuke pauses for a minute. Is this going to make _Kyoya_ worry about her? “And there isn’t one. I’m fine with this. I don’t mind that we’re getting married. But like you said, I don’t think I’d be able to convince them. They’d still be saying the same old ‘you can talk to me if anything’s wrong’ stuff, looking at me when I have my back turned…”

Bitterness creeps into her voice, which he’ll probably misplace. She is _not_ bitter at Tamaki and Haruhi. She loves them. She’s bitter at herself for time and time again being so easy to pity.

She takes in a deep breath, straightening her spine, and meets his eyes again. He’s still calm and collected.

“I don’t think I’d be able to convince them that everything’s fine just by saying so. _But…_ if I acted like everything was _more_ than fine, that I wasn’t just ‘okay’ with this and I was actually _happy_ about it, then maybe they’d accept that more easily.”

Kyoya nods, not happily. “So we’re in agreement.”

“I guess so. We’ll act… _affectionate_ in public. Or just chipper.”

Kyoya nods again, and a length of silence follows. Kosuke thinks about what she’s going to have to do and tries not to grimace in front of him. She’s not going to just snog him in public, obviously, but she can’t help but find it weird, the image of smiling warmly at him and even just brushing against his hand while others are watching. Especially if they’ll be like this once they’re behind closed doors, quiet and terse.

The average human lives to be…what, eighty? So she has about sixty years of this to look forward to. All the time that she has been alive times three.

As everything mixes together—exhaustion, anger, confusion, fear—into that gross, muddy brown when you mix up all the colors on a palette…Guilt seeps in. And Kosuke doesn’t feel so bitter anymore.

Had Kyoya been rude to her at the dinner? Yeah, maybe. But he apologized for it. And sure, he was a bit terse, a bit blunt, but Kosuke wasn’t exactly radiating warmth lately, either. Plus, having a job like his and going to a school like this _on top_ of a new bride is probably stressing him out of his personality. He’s Tamaki’s best friend and a close one of Haruhi’s. He’s helping them plan their wedding and will be the Best Man. He _can’t_ be a bad guy.

Kosuke takes a peek at him from the corner of her eye. He’s looking towards the doors, which are still stifling the chatter and laughter of the party. Kyoya doesn’t look too pleased with it. It must have been a surprise for him, too, and he also wasn’t clicking his heels—maybe not for the same reason as her, but still.

The thought also occurs…how much say so did Kyoya get in this?

 _Have I thought of this before? I can’t even remember._ Kyoya’s family setup was just a touch bit more “standard” than hers. His father did not seek him out after almost two decades of being a stranger just to marry him off to a stranger. Kyoya knew his father, he worked for him. They were a family, and Shigeo had told her that people in “his world” have to do things for their family less they bring them down. Shigeo wasn’t Kosuke’s family, she only hopped on board with this because she had to.

Kyoya had a family, though, and from what she understood, an important partner in their company had pulled out. Did he have to do this? Did he also feel like had no choice?

Kosuke tried to map out sixty years in her mind. It’s not easy—it’s hard to comprehend such a long period of time. Sixty years of them exchanging monosyllables, barely looking at each other, just wallowing in the stress of their situation. She’d told herself the night of the dinner that she was going to get him to like her. What had happened to change her mind?

 _He’s not a bad guy,_ she tells herself again. _This is just a bad situation._

So, with all of that thought (in about the five or so seconds of silence), Kosuke starts, in a gentler voice, “I…feel like there’s more that we should talk about, if that’s okay with you.”

“I agree. However, there’s more that I wanted to say, if I may.”

Kosuke nods and urges, “Yeah, go ahead.”

He pushes up his glasses again. A tic, she guesses. “I am…aware that you have had a limited amount of time to fully grasp everything that someone in your position will be responsible for.”

She tips her head in a “fair enough” fashion. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“I don’t know what Mr. Amida has or has not explained to you so far.” He pauses. “Has he told you of how important your image will be now?”

“He has.” _I still don’t get it, but he has._ “He said that what I do and say can reflect on him.” She hesitates, unsure if she should add it, but does: “And you, I suppose.”

Agreeably, he goes on, “I have been very mindful of how others perceive me throughout my life. I may not be an inheritor of Ootori Medical, but I am still an Ootori. Whether they’re simply a socialite or even a potential future partner, people will watch me and form opinions on my family. If they’re worth associating with, let alone doing business with.”

Somehow he’s made it make more sense in twelve seconds than Shigeo has for the past whatever. It’s still strange, of course, but she supposes she can follow the logic. “I understand.”

She doesn’t know where this is going.

She doesn’t expect it to go like this:

“You said yourself that what you say and do can and will affect me. So I would appreciate it if you were more—mindful of your behavior in public.”

If a record were playing right now, it would have just scratched.

All of those thoughts, about Kyoya not being a bad guy and all, they don’t _disappear,_ per se, but they get—paused. Put on hold.

Parroting back “Behavior?” probably won’t do her any favors, so she instead says, slowly, “What behavior are you talking about?”

“Perhaps ‘behavior’ isn’t the right word.” There’s no apology in his tone. “I already realized at the dinner that you are not knowledgeable in the—for lack of a better word— _details_ of Amida Health. I saw as much just a while ago when you were talking to the other students. People will begin noticing that you don’t know much at all about the company that you’re going to lead one day. They’re going to start wondering why you’ve even been offered such a thing, let alone creating a partnership with another medical company.”

Kosuke swallows but doesn’t take her eyes off of him. He’s not wrong, but boy does he not sound right. The annoyance has crept back into his voice. She’s a problem. She’s embarrassing him. The guy who stormed out of their first meeting.

Back in the party, and even the engagement party that seemed to long ago, she was dying of humiliation, not being able to answer questions she should. But the way Kyoya says “why you’ve been offered such a thing” makes another thought occur to her. “Why is it any of their business?”

His gray eyes narrow behind his glasses. Unamused. “I thought we were on the same page. It doesn’t matter whether it’s their business or not. What matters is that it will bring into question the mindsets of our fathers and the ethics of our companies. When people ask me about why you don’t seem to know anything about Amida Health, I don’t know what I’ll be telling them.”

 _Now_ the whole Kyoya’s-not-a-bad-guy train of thought starts to fade. “You’re mad because I’m embarrassing you.”

His eyes narrow more. _Thoroughly_ unamused. “I just said—”

“Dad has already started teaching me everything. I don’t know every tiny little detail because of how quickly everything has had to change. I don’t have time to study business models when I’m moving myself and two children into a new house. If you have a problem with how slowly I’m learning everything, you can discuss it with my father, but I don’t think you will.”

“I’ll grant you that your father should be the one teaching you about Amida Health, but I don’t think it’s correct to say you don’t have some responsibility yourself. Did you not ask him to perhaps slow everything down? To explain Amida Health’s workings and your responsibilities _before_ you agreed to being heiress?”

 _I would have loved to._ “That’s not how it ended up playing out, alright?”

“Then how did it? I’m genuinely curious. Why did you agree to become the future owner of an international medical technology company despite knowing nothing about it?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” He opens his mouth again, and she quickly adds, “He’s going to teach me everything I need to know—and we’re _literally_ standing in the college where I’ll be educated in business management. So I’m sorry it’s not happening at the pace you want, but I _am_ learning.”

“This is—not at all how I wanted this conversation to go.” Kyoya briefly sets his palm against his forehead. Still no apology, just annoyance. “I shouldn’t have gotten off track. What you do and don’t know isn’t my concern—”

“It clearly is, since you feel so strongly about it.”

“As I _keep telling you,_ your lack of knowledge could negatively impact my family _and_ yours.”

“Okay, let me posit this idea.” Kosuke claps her hands together just because she feels like being a little condescending. See how he likes it. “We just tell everyone that my father saw potential in me. It’s not like I’m going to be running the company _tomorrow,_ he’s training me to do it because he believes I can. At least then I’ll look more determined-student-wanting-to-lead-her-dear-father’s-company and not dumb-twat-way-in-over-her-head.”

Another facepalm. “That still doesn’t change the fact that I’m someone who has been trained for years and years in how my family’s business is run and operated while you’re just someone Mr. Amida _thinks_ can run his company one day. The only reason two people like that would be engaged would be for money.”

Kosuke tries to keep her eyes from bugging out of her head. “ _Yes?_ Is that not why people around here get in arranged marriages all the time?”

“‘People around here’ get into arranged marriages because their families are fully aware that they will be prepared for leadership positions in their respective businesses. If a well-prepared heir is arranged to marry _another_ well-prepared heir, then the result is a partnership made by the union of two people who _know what they’re doing_ and will lead their family businesses accordingly.”

“What does your sister do? She was arranged to marry her husband. What’s her big ‘leadership’ position in Ootori Medical?”

Finally Kyoya pinches the bridge of his brow—the telltale look of someone who has been proven wrong but still thinks they’re fundamentally right.

“When I am engaged to you, and you don’t know anything about Amida Health, then it becomes very obvious that the only reason we’re engaged was so your father’s company could replace DomenMed for a partnership with us.”

“That’s a _secret_?”

“It’s a _suspicion_ that we don’t want to _prove_.” Kosuke can’t keep a scoff in any longer, and Kyoya snaps, “All I’m asking you to do is to show more knowledge about Amida Health to better your image as its future owner.”

“Because otherwise I’m embarrassing you.”

“If that’s how you’re determined to paint my argument as, fine.”

“I’m not trying to embarrass you on _purpose._ Don’t you think I’m more embarrassed than you are?”

“I’m not saying you’re doing it on _purpose,_ but you’re going into settings where people are bound to ask questions about your family and business.”

“What do you mean, _going into settings?_ It was a surprise party. I’m sorry, but I was _surprised._ ”

“You still had to have _some_ notion that you would be asked certain questions before you arrived today. You could try to divert the topic, or just say you’d rather not talk about it right now, but instead you were floundering out there with no idea of what to say.”

 _Fair point. But also:_ “So, just to be clear, not knowing about something I have had zero time to learn about is unacceptable, but up and walking out of our first meeting is _totally fine?_ You want to talk about me making _you_ look bad?”

Finally Kyoya’s eyes go wide open, outraged. Kosuke wants to slap the past version of herself for ever thinking his eyes were pretty. “I apologized for that!”

“And let me tell you, it was like someone trying to pull their own teeth out!”

“I wasn’t just _up and walking out,_ my phone was vibrating and I needed to go answer it.”

 _What?!_ “You couldn’t have put it on hold for five minutes?”

For one second, Kyoya’s sneer deepens so much Kosuke thinks his lip is about to curl back from his teeth. “You didn’t seem to have any problem using _your_ phone.”

“What are you even—” It takes a second for the memory to roll back. Can she be blamed for not immediately remembering? She’d looked down at Haruhi’s text for all of three seconds. It didn’t imprint in her mind. But even as she realizes what he’s talking about, Kosuke only doubles down. “Haruhi was watching my brother and sister. It could have been an emergency.”

“How do you know the phone calls I was getting weren’t emergencies?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t even know you were getting phone calls, because instead of doing what a _normal human being_ would do and just saying, ‘I’m sorry, this could be serious, I need to go answer this phone call real quick,’ you just huffed and puffed and left without explaining why!” The more she talks, the harder Kyoya pinches the bridge of his nose. She doesn’t let up. “I was at least _trying_ to hide my phone because I didn’t want to be rude to you. Let’s look back on your _stunning_ behavior, shall we?” Kosuke starts ticking off her fingers. She has not felt this angry in a long time, and it’s bad, but she’s on a high right now. “You couldn’t say one syllable to me without sighing it out, you wouldn’t even _look_ at me, and when you finally started to talk to me first, it was to grill me like I was some criminal you were trying to crack! Forgive me if all of that led me to think you just got fed up and left.”

“Well, if you had simply stayed behind and waited for me—as I am _positive_ your father told you to do—I would have happily explained otherwise.”

“Oh, no. I don’t give a crap about your stupid _courting rituals,_ I am not staying behind for someone who treats me like that. If you’d just explained to me why you left when you ‘apologized’ before—Well, I still wouldn’t be happy, but it makes more sense than just letting me think you’re some proud jerk. Which is true, by the way, because ‘simply explain what happened’ was much, much farther down on your list of priorities than ‘scold your fiancée like she’s a five-year-old child.’”

Kosuke is fully aware at this point that she’s more or less lost her marbles. That rational part of her brain is now the size of an atom, though, and every other part is still blazing. She and Kyoya are two boxers in the ring, and she’s waiting for his response, waiting to throw another blow. Because screw her puppeteering father, screw this pompous douchebag of a fiancé, screw this whole asinine situation.

Kyoya does not respond. He stays there for a long, _long_ stretch of time pinching his nose, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Kosuke knows that he can’t see her, but she crosses her arms and glares at him anyway. She isn’t some unruly child to discipline and she’s not going to let him treat her like one.

Finally Kyoya opens his eyes and drops his hand to clasp it with the other one—less a condescending gesture and more of a, _I am THIS close to losing my mind_ gesture.

“This is not how I wanted this conversation to go—”

“You’re not getting an apology.”

“—but that said, I think this was still worthwhile regardless. Now we have a better understanding of each other and at least some idea of how the rest of this… _union_ is going to look like.”

Despite the rage that’s still pumping white-hot through her veins, a stone still drops in Kosuke’s chest. Maybe not a _large_ stone, granted, but regardless…

Any hope she’d had in this whole thing is now officially dead. Kyoya is not just treating her as such just because he’s stressed by what’s happening, he actually, _really_ dislikes her. He is not just a slightly proud man who is still best of friends with Haruhi and Tamaki, he’s a condescending bastard with an ego bigger than the entirety of Japan.

Last but certainly not least, Kosuke is not going to be working her way towards an at least _civil_ marriage with this man because now she is no longer interested in doing so. If “getting along” with Kyoya Ootori means letting him scold her like a child and sigh in annoyance every time she so much as breathes, then no. She would much rather spend the rest of her life with this guy despising her than let her head duck for him even once. They’re going to be married at the end of the day, happily or otherwise.

She almost can’t believe how quickly her outlook on this whole thing has changed. She rewinds through the conversation, her outrage gaining new fire as she recalls every sneered little criticism he’d thrown at her, until finally she comes back to what they were talking about before this. Kosuke is suddenly very, very exhausted.

“Do you still want to put on an act for the others?”

Again, screw this guy, but she wants him to say yes. Needs him to.

Terse, short conversations and fleeting eye contact will undoubtedly bring on Haruhi and Tamaki’s attention. They will time and again assault her with hands on her shoulders, eyes looking right back into her, the gentle but all-knowing repetition of “Is everything okay?” the soundtrack for the rest of her life.

Glaring, scoffing, and refusing to say a word to each other will leave them no barriers. Their friends won’t just warmly hint to the fact that they know something is wrong. They will tell them, fiercely, point-blank and demand answers. They will refuse to leave them alone until they admit that there’s a problem, and after that, until they let themselves be helped. Because Haruhi and Tamaki are just too good and care so much.

Kyoya knows this, which is why, after heaving a sigh so large she sees his chest expand behind his blazer, he replies, “Yes. My points still stand. What about you?”

She bites the inside of her cheek until she gets the first hint of something coppery. “Yeah. I’m just going to have to act a lot harder now.”

The last little blow is unnecessary. Probably kicking a dead horse. But oh well. Kyoya’s jaw once again pulls piano wire-tight. “Me, too. I think we should go back in now.”

“I’m right behind you. Just need a minute to put my smile on.”

She says this last part with her back already turned. She can’t look at him anymore. She doesn’t even want to remember what he looks like. Behind her, Kyoya wastes no time. She hears the door open and yet another brief peal of sound before it shuts again.

So now she’s alone, and she still feels like a pile of rotting garbage, but she has to admit: alone, she feels the best she has all day. No siblings to kiss goodbye to as she sends them off to a foreign land. No strangers revealing her ineptitude question-by-question. No Haruhi to charade as a stupid lovesick girl to. No Kyoya to kick her while she’s already down. The air already feels fresher.

She knows she can’t stay out here forever, so she does what she did when she had to sign the paper that ended the life of Kosuke Nakahara. She gives herself ten more seconds and just makes them stretch longer.

In those ten seconds, she is—naturally, because what better way to make her feel better?—hit with a memory of her parents. More specifically, their wedding.

It wasn’t a large wedding, not at all. The ceremony was in one of many azumayas in Karuizawa. The aisle was a thin dirt path lined in lilies, the pews just simple plastic chairs draped in pearly ribbon. It wasn’t the grand affair that the much-younger Kosuke was expected, and though she was rather disappointed, she kept her criticisms to herself. She was her mother’s Flower Girl of Honor (Maid of Honor and Flower Girl combined into one role, and Kosuke felt like she ruled the world), so it was her job to be happy.

Which wasn’t hard. She was finally getting the father she always wanted. She and Mommy and Marti were all going to live together in Karuizawa and be a family, and if Kosuke’s wishes came true, she’d have a baby brother or sister one day—maybe both! Mostly, though, her mother was radiating so much happiness that in Kosuke’s eyes, she almost looked angelic.

At that age, Kosuke knew—in that way that kids sometimes get to know things, by looking back on something they never really noticed before and going “huh”—that her mother was not happy often. She smiled and laughed, but even then, she always seemed tired, like she could never get enough sleep. Kosuke thought that maybe it was because she spent so many nights smoking outside, but Emiko would deny it. She’d never asked Mommy _why_ she was so tired and unhappy all the time because that was normal. It was not a new, noticeable thing to be noted.

At her wedding, though, Emiko was nothing but joy. Kosuke can’t remember a moment where she wasn’t smiling—even when tears were spilling out of her eyes, she was still smiling. So Kosuke didn’t see any reason to comment that they weren’t in a big, fancy church or that her mother was wearing a white sundress instead of an actual wedding gown.

The reception lasted well after sunset. To be honest, Kosuke does not remember most of the people who were there. They were friends of Emiko’s and Marti’s who’d just sort of faded from their lives as Okina had from hers, she guessed. They all mingled around the grass, drinking fruit punch and eating the cake Marti had made himself.

Kosuke refused to stop dancing no matter if music was still playing or not—eventually Marti realized that his now-stepdaughter was sitting on the grass not for the heck of it, but because she literally could not stand anymore, and carried her over to sit on one of the chairs for a while. Kosuke just let herself sit still and enjoy everything. The wedding would not last forever, and it made her sad.

Emiko came down to sit beside her, blonde hair tousled from dancing, and a tiny little smudge of pink frosting just near the sweetheart neckline of her dress (Marti had done a rather shoddy job of getting cake into her mouth and apologized profusely despite his wife’s reassurances.) She looked warm.

While they were sitting there—just sitting, not talking, a mother and daughter drinking in the beginning of a new life after so long of just the two of them—Emiko said, “Kosuke?”

Kosuke was taking a drink of punch and had spat it back out into her cup just so she could reply. “Yeah?”

“I want you to make a promise for me, okay?”

“What is it?”

Emiko gently ran her fingers through Kosuke’s hair—she’d told Kosuke many times that she was jealous of her hair, jealous that it was soft because Emiko always thought hers was just a bit too dry—but raised her eyes to her husband. He was talking to some of his friends at the party. He’d taken off his black blazer, and he’d forgotten to shave in all the preparation, but to Kosuke he still looked like the handsomest dad in the world.

Emiko had told her, “I want you to promise me that when you get married one day, you make sure that the person you marry is absolutely good. Okay?”

Kosuke wrinkled her nose. Adults didn’t always make sense, even if they sounded smart. “Why would I marry someone bad?”

“I’m just saying, honey,” her mother chuckled, and drew her in so the back of Kosuke’s head rested on her chest. “It’s an easy promise to make, isn’t it?”

“Mm-hm,” Kosuke answered, rather absentmindedly. “I promise.”

And now Kosuke is here.

And unlike all of her other decisions before this, she doesn’t hear her mother’s voice this time. She just hears static.

Kosuke doesn’t smile, but she puts on a relaxed face, the face of a girl who has come out of a completely normal conversation with a boy she’s already head over heels for. It hurts.


	18. Family Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their mother returning home at last, Fuyumi wrangles Kyoya into a dinner party to celebrate.

The good news is that it works.

It seemed that everyone else had been convinced that Kyoya and Kosuke already fancy each other a great deal. They kept it believable. Of course everyone knows Kyoya enough that they would boggle at him if he just melted into a puddle whenever his fiancée drew closer, so he minds himself to just make his smiles look less charming and more sincere and make his voice take on a warmer tone as he speaks of her. It goes a long way. Kosuke also does well to keep a pleasant smile and bashfully tuck some hair behind her ear during talks of marriage and happiness and such. Though she doesn't throw herself onto Kyoya, she does make a point to lightly touch his arm as she says she's going to go get a drink, or, after he makes one teasing joke at her, punctuating it with a well-timed nudge to the side.

After that party had finally— _finally —_ wound down, and a steady stream of attendees were now leaving through the door, Kosuke and Kyoya had been rendered stationary to give thanks to everyone for coming and listening to their last few congratulations. It seemed that Kosuke had made a recoverable impression among everyone: a kind and polite woman who just didn't enjoy crowds much, so everyone did their best to make her feel at ease by _not_ talking about work or business in any way. Kyoya overhears her getting at least four invitations to some party or another.

The Zukas and Reiko congratulate him again, Hani remarking that they already look "so happy!" The twins half-jokingly ask if Kosuke set some kind of curse on him to make the Shadow King become infatuated with a woman so quickly—again, _half-_ jokingly. Haruhi is tough to describe—it's as if she's convinced but is still confused. She's the only one that frowns when she sees them together.

(This time, the idea that she might be jealous didn't even appear. She wasn't and never would be and Kyoya wasn't going to consider the notion.)

Most importantly, as Fuyumi was leaving, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her so she could whisper, "I'm sorry for blowing up at you earlier. I'm such a worrywart."

"You're forgiven," Kyoya had told her, and just narrowly avoided interruption when Tamaki appeared as well.

"We hope you two didn't mind the surprise party," he had said. He and Fuyumi put on identical sorry-not-sorry expressions. "But you know us. We couldn't help ourselves."

"And _you—_ " Kyoya did not hear Kosuke approaching, but then Fuyumi was reaching out and gathering his fiancée's hands in hers and squeezing them tightly. "We need to hang out as soon as possible. I want to get to know everything about you."

Kosuke had smiled and nodded, perhaps even sincerely. "I'll try to set a day aside as soon as I can."

Tamaki's grin had gone softer, and his eyes—to Kyoya's and Kosuke's alarm both—became water-lined. "Look at you two," he'd said, even though the two of them had hardly glanced at each other since Kosuke had walked up. "I just know you're going to be happy together."

"Don't they already get along so well?" sighed Fuyumi. "If this is how you two are already, just imagine how much happier you'll be in the future!"

Kosuke had warmly joked, "We'll see!" at the same time Kyoya had said, "I'm sure we will be."

He was quite certain that if he'd had the ability to read Kosuke's mind, she would have been thinking something along the lines of, _I seriously doubt it._

And Kyoya would have been thinking the same thing.

Because here is the bad news: his fiancée has now proven that she is going to be a Problem. With a capital P.

Kyoya had run through their conversation over and over again just to _try_ and figure out what he'd done wrong, but he keeps coming up short. He had politely asked her to please just touch up on her knowledge of Amida Health for his sake, her sake, and their families. True, he'd put a little more focus on _his_ sake, considering he was going to be _married_ to her, but the point still stood. She was agreeing with him…until she wasn't.

Kosuke had said point-blank that she understood that what she said and did could affect him in some way or another, and yet, when he then _kindly_ requested she remedy one behavior specifically, that was just too far. In two seconds she'd gone from agreeable and cooperative to stamping her feet and saying he was "scolding her like a five-year-old child."

She had said that she was embarrassing herself more than him…so why not do what Kyoya advised and educate herself? If she wants to go with the _momentary_ cover of "my father saw potential in me," that was well and good, but what reason was there to snap that at him like it was _his_ job to come up with that? Like he was pushing blame onto her for his shortcomings?

Granted, he was wrong when he said all arranged marriages were leaders coming together with leaders. It truly is more about the connection formed between two companies. But Fuyumi and Tetsu can't compare to them. Fuyumi never wanted any employment with Ootori Medical, and she was never setup to expect much—but she was still an Ootori, thus why Tetsu was set to wed her. Kyoya is already working towards _some kind_ of role in Ootori Medical and is going to be marrying Kosuke because she _will_ be leading Amida Health one day. So sure, not every arranged marriage will be "leader and leader," but it shouldn't be "person well-trained in business operation and person who can't even list one kind of business model."

And _then_ they started talking about the dinner, which just—

Kyoya apologized for walking out. He completely understood that that was unacceptable and yes, probably humiliated Kosuke much like how her naivete to Amida Health has and will embarrass him. However, he did have a _reason,_ just like she did to be texting on her phone—which, by the way embarrassed him. It seemed that entire ordeal was just one miscommunication after another, but is Kyoya expected to just shoulder all the blame for it?

He tried reminding himself that Kosuke has been, and _is going,_ through a lot. She has lost her mother and stepfather. She has two younger siblings to take care of. She's just uprooted her entire life to come out to Tokyo on short notice. Kyoya can perfectly understand that all that would cause a great deal of stress.

That didn't make it okay to just take it out on him because he was the easiest target. He'd said she needed to be careful about their impressions on others, she agreed, he added that she should know more about her company, which she _also_ agreed with—but exploded on him regardless. Either all her frustrations came bubbling up all at once at him, or Kosuke Amida has a fragile pride, and the slightest bit of criticism is "scolding" and "condescending."

So this is what he's going to have to look forward to for the rest of his life. Putting on a smile and acting lovesick in public, snapping at each other like angry dogs in private.

_Fun._

Is this really the woman Tamaki and Haruhi gushed and fawned over so many times? Even a man as patient and forgiving as Tamaki wouldn't put up with someone so temperamental.

It's almost a shame, because when they were talking about their idea to pretend to be infatuated with each other for their friends' sake, he supposed he sort of…connected with her for a moment? Perhaps connected was too strong a word, but she was afraid of the same thing he was afraid of. She'd had the same idea for how to deal with it and had already set the plan in motion.

Alas. All for naught.

At least the silver lining of this is that he won't have to worry about making time in his schedule for her anymore. He imagines she'll be wanting to spend her free time with him just as much as he wants to.

This isn't what Kyoya wanted, but just like Amaya Domen had to figure out, Kyoya wasn't going to deny reality just to make someone happy. Amaya learned that he doesn't just immediately fall to others' feet and beg for their love. Kosuke learned that he doesn't let problems go unaddressed.

Before, he often dreaded any time alone, knowing that his brain would—without his consent—turn to thoughts of Tamaki and Haruhi, and he'd get distracted with pathetic feelings of jealousy and longing. That's still a problem, but at least alone, he doesn't have to convince anyone that he's smitten with Kosuke, and he certainly doesn't have to worry about his fiancée's presence.

It's been three days since the party. He's been back at Ootori Medical for far shorter than he wishes, doing far less work than he's capable of. He's had to _talk_ of Kosuke—particularly when students tell him things like "She's in my class, she seems really nice!"—but _thankfully,_ all he's seen of her is a few passing glimpses in the halls. She waves to him and smiles once because she knows people are watching. Tamaki continues to blow up his phone to ask if he wants to go on a double-date with Haruhi sometime, the twins are trying to get him to figure out Kosuke's dress measurements, and Hani wants to know if he wants to go on a _triple_ date with all the couples now part of the Ouran Host Club.

Haruhi is remarkably quiet. Likely not near as used to or as chipper as her fiancé is about their best friends being engaged. Kyoya is unsure if he wants to talk to her or not. Any and all talk of Kosuke sounds sour to him now, but Haruhi has always had a calming effect on him.

He's particularly keeping an eye on Fuyumi, especially now that she "knows" how much he "likes" Kosuke already. He wouldn't be surprised if she already had more surprises in store.

She _does_ surprise him when he returns home from work—a measly _five_ hours, like getting engaged was his "real" job this entire time and now he's just there for filler. It's just not with anything to do with Kosuke.

"Mom's coming home tonight and I need you to help me get dinner ready!"

Fuyumi grabs his free hand—the other hasn't even put down his briefcase yet. She tries to drag him to the dining room, but all she manages is a brisk walk.

"I'm assuming she told you this?" Kyoya asks. For just a split second, he's— _annoyed._ So many times he's called and messaged his mother, and the closest he gets to a response is this?

"Of course she told me, don't be dumb." Fuyumi drops his hand once they're in the dining room and runs to a cardboard box sitting on one of the chairs. "Now can you please help me? We only have an hour to get all this set up!"

She throws the box into Kyoya's arms and pulls out a bag of confetti for herself. _Confetti._ Kyoya takes a look inside and sees several…interesting items, like cone-shaped party hats, another bag of cheap paper confetti, and (when he pulls it out and dangles it) a string of laminated letters that read _WELCOME HOME!_

Not quite on par with the fully-catered surprise party she'd managed to get the entirety of Ouran University invited to. "Where did you buy these things? A dollar store?"

"The close one with the green roof. You know the one!" Fuyumi takes handful after handful of confetti out of the bag and arranges it so meticulously between the candelabras. For _some reason,_ the manufactured bits of paper clash with the double-figure karat gold. "Are you just going to stand there?"

Kyoya picks up the banner, stretches out its whole length just by spreading his arms apart, and looks back at the doorway. "We may need another one of these. Or five."

"Look, this is on extremely short notice, okay? She just texted me that she's coming home two hours ago!"

Fuyumi sets a little sprinkle of confetti on a plate, then hesitates, clearly unsure. Kyoya finally sets the box down, figuring, why not? Cheap decorations aside, there's no harm in any of it…Though he is going to legitimately struggle to find a place for the tiny banner. "It's odd for her to come straight home after a trip."

"Well." Fuyumi coughs. "She traveled a lot. She's probably just tired."

"She wasn't 'tired' the last time she went to Taiwan. Went straight to another meeting."

"She…didn't just go to Taiwan. She also went to Cambodia. And Bangladesh. And Sri Lanka."

For _what?_ Kyoya asks it with his eyes, but Fuyumi can only answer, "Maybe she just decided to have an impromptu vacation?"

"Without inviting any of us? I would have said no, obviously, but she usually sends a dozen calls asking if we want to join her."

"What matters is that she's coming home, and we're going to have a nice family dinner for her." Fuyumi finally sets down the confetti on the plate, satisfied, only to then scoop it all back up and chirp, "Oh! Get the name cards."

The cards are on thin, folded cardboard, but at least his Fuyumi has impeccable handwriting. Kyoya flips through them: _Mother, Kyoya, Fuyumi…_ but then he also sees _Akito_ and _Yuuichi._ "You have _asked_ our brothers to attend, yes? Or is this just wishful thinking?"

His sister smiles very proudly. "Oh, they're coming, don't worry."

He flips to the last card: _Father._ "So all six of us will be here?"

"Six?" Fuyumi ticks off her fingers, but her eyes go from chair to chair. Then she stamps her three-inch heel on the floor. "Oh, I knew I forgot something! Kosuke should be here, she hasn't met Mother yet. Do you think if I call now, she'd be able to make it?"

"Less than an hour is very short notice," Kyoya replies very easily. As much of a surprise as this dinner is, he would very much enjoy another Kosuke-free evening. "She'd be happy to meet Mother at another time, I'm sure."

"Have we ever all been together?" Fuyumi asks morosely. She fiddles with a crooked candle. "Tetsu is going out of town tonight, Diana has a soiree she has to go to, Itsumi is still visiting her grandmother in Prague…At least all the Ootoris will be here."

"So Father is coming."

"Well…" Fuyumi tucks a silky strand of hair behind her ear. Her version of rubbing the back of her neck. "If I can tell him in the next hour. He hasn't been picking up."

Fuyumi's lips pull together, and even as she goes on setting up the decorations, Kyoya knows she's upset. He knows that this idea Fuyumi has, of their family being the kind to just always be available to each other at any given moment, to be the type that comes together for dinner just because…it's not going to happen. The Ootoris stopped being that sort of family a long, _long_ time ago.

Still, he doesn't want to make his sister any more upset than she already is, so he goes back to trying to figure out where to place the banner. He thinks maybe they're just going to have to string it between the candelabras and hope it doesn't catch fire.

* * *

It does occur to him that his mother will undoubtedly want to be informed of anything and everything that has happened—including her youngest child's fiancée that she has not met yet. So Kyoya will, at least for a while, have to resume his roll of the infatuated lovebird. Very well. He'll just power through it.

In the end, the decorations turn out probably as good as they were going to get. It seems common enough sense to not put bargain-bin decorations on a table cloth shipped straight from the core of Taipai, but he's done teasing his sister about it. They only end up in argument about table arrangements. Fuyumi wants their parents to sit across from each other width-wise, Kyoya thinks they should go the traditional route of lengthwise, being the heads of the family.

The hour dries up, and Kyoya and Fuyumi are still the only ones in the dining room. Kyoya tries not to look at his watch too often. He'd been hoping that (though he's not happy with having so much free time) he'd be able to do at least some work on the Project. They spend five minutes past the hour just sitting in front of the doorway, waiting. Fuyumi is fidgeting as much as she allows herself, running her hand down the front of her dress, ever-so-slightly tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"Should we be worried?" Kyoya asks, just to try and calm her down.

Fuyumi's brows knit together. "Why?"

"She always said that three minutes was the limit on being fashionably late, and if she's ever later than five, we need to call the police."

He waits to hear Fuyumi laugh, or something, but after five seconds of straight silence, he looks over to her. She has her phone out and has just stamped in _110._

Kyoya reaches over and snaps the phone shut just before she can hit call.

"That was a joke."

"I can't tell when you're joking," she pouts.

Finally, they hear footsteps on the other side of the door. Fuyumi straightens her spine, Kyoya readjusts his tie. Even if he has to talk about Kosuke, he'll be glad to see his mother again, if only to know that she's been well.

He already has his mouth open in greeting when the door opens and someone _besides_ his mother steps through the door.

"Why aren't you at a _hospital?!"_ Yuuichi yells as soon as he steps through the door. Kyoya can't help but reel back—he could count on his fingertips the amount of times his oldest brother has raised his voice. He beelines to Fuyumi, all but grabbing her head in his hands to twist it from side to side. "Can you breathe? Do you feel nauseous?"

His eyes then go to Kyoya, and flash with fury. "Why are you just _standing_ there?!"

His attention is brought back when Fuyumi gently pulls his hands away from her. Her smile may look sweet, but it's filled with satisfaction. "There you are! We were waiting for you!"

Yuuchi blinks one, two, three times. He takes a step back to look at his sister up and down, then to Kyoya, then to their best attempt at a good dinner setting. His Ootori-gray eyes fill more with outrage with each second that passes, until finally he barks at Fuyumi, "You said you were having a severe allergic reaction! That you thought you were going into anaphylactic shock!"

"Turns out I'm fine," Fuyumi hums. "But thank you for coming! At least now you can stay for dinner with Mother."

Kyoya and Yuuichi look to each other with mirrored expressions of narrow-eyed, open-mouthed bafflement. Kyoya finally finds the sense to say, "You got Yuuichi to come…by telling him your life was in danger."

Fuyumi only winks at him. "Told you he and Akito were coming."

Yuuichi takes his glasses off so he can press his fingers into his eyes. Kyoya has honestly never seen him explode on their sister in any way, but he would not blame the man if he did now. Kyoya himself is far beyond appalled and he wasn't even the one lied to.

He folds his arms and fixes Fuyumi with the most withering look he can manage—which he knows he can, very easily. "You don't need me to tell you that that is nowhere near acceptable."

"Over the past few years, I have figured out a code when it comes to the three of you," Fuyumi _sniffs._ "If you legitimately have something going on, you're specific. 'I can't, Fuyumi, I have to meet with a client today,' or, 'Itsumi is sick, we won't be able to come.' _But,_ if all you say is 'I'm busy,' that always means, 'I want to do work that I don't really _have_ to do.' Or, let's be honest, 'I don't want to.' So just knowing how you and Akito responded to my invitations earlier, I know you are both free for the evening."

Before Kyoya can respond, Yuuichi puts his glasses back on and gives Fuyumi a withering look of his own. Kyoya has been told that he has a six-feet-under glare—a glare that has "probably actually killed someone," as the twins have put it. He wonders how others would react to Yuuichi's, because Kyoya prides himself on his steely spine and even _he_ feels the intensity of it even when it's not directed at him. Fuyumi loses any last trace of pride—her face falls into a guilty frown and her arms fold as if to protect herself.

"Fuyumi," Yuuichi says in a calm, quiet voice that still rumbles like thunder. "You are my sister. I love you and I respect you. But I am going to tell you one time and one time only: don't you _ever_ play a trick like that again."

Fuyumi looks away for a moment just to catch some relief. He might be pushing it, but Kyoya very much does not want something like this _ever_ happening again, so he adds, "I hope you weren't expecting everyone to just laugh it off."

He takes no pride in how Fuyumi crumbles just a little bit more, but it needs to be said. She says time and again that he is the only brother that actually makes the slightest effort to talk and be around her on a regular basis—which is obviously why he _wasn't_ called here under such a lie, but if she ever did so to him, all that "slightest effort" would take a long, _long_ absence. And to be frank, this is _not_ going to convince her brothers to see her more often.

Fuyumi finally straightens up her back and says, calmly, "I'm sorry. That was immature of me. And manipulative."

Still outraged, but satisfied, Yuuichi looks down to his wristwatch. His eyebrow twitches. "Well, even if I only _want_ to and don't _have_ to, there is work I would like to get done. Fuyumi. Kyoya."

He turns to leave, and Fuyumi hurries to him, calling, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! If you don't need anything done tonight, what's the harm in staying?"

Yuuichi raises a brow. "Is there something important that needs to be discussed?"

"No. Not every conversation with another person needs to be about next year's projections, you know." Fuyumi quickly remembers that she has no place to argue about anything right now, and backtracks at Yuuichi's glower. "Mom is coming home tonight and it would just be _nice_ if we all had a welcome-home dinner."

Yuuichi doesn't take his eyes off of her, but he clearly contemplates for a moment. "When was the last time we threw a dinner party just because one of us was coming home from a business trip?"

"My point exactly." Fuyumi looks between them both, pleading, "I know this seems weird, but it _shouldn't_ be. Family members wanting to see each other is normal. What's weird is that we can't remember the last time we all so much as stood in the same room together. And it's our _mother,_ Yuuichi. Can't we put time aside for her?" When Yuuichi does not immediately responds, she adds, "You know how hard Kyoya has been working, and he had no problem doing this tonight."

 _Thanks for putting me in the spotlight,_ Kyoya thinks, but he knows his sister means well. This just…isn't them. Even if it shouldn't be weird to do this, it just is, and doing stuff like this out of the blue only makes things stranger. The Ootoris are not a family who has dinner together just for the sake of it.

Yuuichi knows that as well as he does, and Kyoya knows that he's waiting for his response. On the one hand, he doubts he'll manage any more than a begrudging acceptance from Yuuichi. On the other hand, he knows that if he leaves, Fuyumi will be crushed.

So finally, he says, "She has been unusually quiet ever since she left. It would be nice to talk to her and know that everything is fine."

Yuuichi looks from him to Fuyumi, and from her to the doorway. Finally, he lets out a sigh and turns his back to the exit. Begrudging acceptance. Best that could be managed.

Fuyumi is, of course, over the moon. She bounces on her heels for a moment—Kyoya really wishes she wouldn't do that—and trills, "Fantastic! Dinner should be ready any second now."

Exactly three seconds later, Akito comes rushing into the room, out of breath and gripping a medical kit with a death-like vice. _"Why aren't you at a hospital?!"_

Oh, if looks could kill…Fuyumi tenses up as Kyoya and Yuuichi level her with identical glares, simply in disbelief at how low she's sunken. This time, she defensively squeaks out, "We've all known one another our _entire lives,_ and you should both know very well that I don't have a peanut _or_ a shellfish allergy. Let's talk about that for a minute, shall we?"

* * *

Akito is about as happy as his brothers about the stunt, but after another round of harsh scolding and sincere apologies, he agrees to stay. Fuyumi looks about as happy as a child in a candy store, and ushers everyone to go ahead and sit to look "more inviting and less stiff"—this leads to yet another argument about who is supposed to sit where.

So in the in, Fuyumi succeeded in—for once—getting all of her brothers together at the same time. Under very unmoral pretenses, but it works. Some part of Kyoya actually admires such a sly scheme, and the same part wants to tell Fuyumi that she shouldn't have explained her "codes," because now none of them will simply say "I'm busy" to her next invitation.

However, the point still stands that this is not something the Ootori family does. Kyoya understands the appeal of the get-togethers you see on holiday letters or television commercials, where everyone is smiling and laughing over a meal, getting caught up with their loved ones. Those things sell because people like the schmaltzy kind of sweetness. It just isn't them.

Which is why they are all sitting here in total silence.

The ticking of the clock on the far wall is gunshot-loud. It seems all four of them have made a competition to see who can avoid eye contact the longest. Every now and then the kitchen door opens and the head chef will peek out, see Fuyumi's hand wave, and duck back in. Dinner was meant to start at six. It is about to strike seven.

From the corner of his eye, Kyoya sees that they have all picked their own "casual" fidgets. He himself has readjusted his tie and glasses about a dozen times now. Fuyumi takes the smallest sips of wine possible to not refill the glass. Akito readjusts his table setting. Yuuichi keeps looking down at his wristwatch as if the one on the wall doesn't cut it.

It's after the millionth time that he does this that Fuyumi finally sighs, "You said you could stay."

"For a dinner that should've started an hour ago." Yuuichi pulls his phone from his pocket, checks the screen. "Have any of you received anything?"

They all take looks at their phones, but every answered is a murmured 'no.' Fuyumi is the only one that attempts to make another call, but after six rings, she hangs up again.

 _Maybe she's like I was,_ Kyoya muses to himself. _Maybe something's going on and she just doesn't want to put up with all the barraging._

This time he's on the other side. Trying to get through to someone that just isn't answering you. He wants to say that he's justified, but if all the others were as miffed as he feels now when he didn't respond to any of their messages or calls, he can understand.

"Well!" Fuyumi straightens herself up, puts on a smile. "There's no point just sitting here in silence. We should all get caught up. How has work been?"

She gets three words in response, one from each brother. "Manageable." "Busy." "Fine."

"Has everyone calmed down now that they don't have to worry about DomenMen anymore?"

"Mostly." "Somewhat." "Hard to tell."

"Did we have to make any big changes to accommodate?"

"Not many." "A few." "It's too early to tell."

Fuyumi's smile fades more and more until she just ducks her head, takes another tiny sip of wine, and leans back into her chair. If it were just the two of them, Kyoya would not have nearly as much trouble talking to her and giving her more than monosyllables. But having his brothers be here just makes it seem so strange—they might as well be strangers listening in on their conversation.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He doesn't check it immediately, somehow already knowing that it's not his mother. He doesn't want Fuyumi to perk up just to be put down again. So he waits just a moment, then pulls it out as if he's just mindlessly looking at something.

_From: Tamaki_

_When Haruhi comes back there'll be a new rollerblading place open in Tokyo. Doesn't that sound fun? All four of us should go as soon as possible!_

Kyoya doesn't answer. At least he can tell Tamaki later that his mother was over for dinner.

Speak of the devil:

Just as he tucks his phone away again, footsteps start to sound from the hallway. It's impossible to mistake Jin Ootori's footsteps. The click of her heels goes to a slow beat as steady as a metronome: one, two, one, two. ("I don't _hurry_ for anyone," she once said.)

They all straighten in their seats. Fuyumi puts on another sugar-sweet smile. If Kyoya is scowling, he tries to remedy it.

The footsteps slow as they come forward. Kyoya sees his mother before she actually appears: black hair pulled back into a bun, makeup as precisely applied as a porcelain doll's, probably with a mink shawl draped around her shoulders because she argues that mink shawls are in fashion year-round. She'll walk in and address them all by name first, because that's what she always does—state your name as if to remind you of what it is.

Jin Ootori may have all the affection and warmth as her daughter, but that doesn't make her any less regal. She may only be asking how your trip to Bali went, or how your nephew is doing, he's gotten so big, but the room will always quiet to listen to her. Jin is fifty-four years old now, and she's still sought out time and again to feature on magazine covers and perfume advertisements because her elegance has not aged a day past twenty.

In short, Jin Ootori—mother of three sons and one daughter, whose role as socialite is sometimes just as important as her husband's as the head of Ootori Medical—is smooth and sophisticated, the sheer image of the elite.

The person who walks through the door is not Jin Ootori. It just looks like her.

"Childreeeen!" she cheers as she sways in and falls against the doorway. Everyone at the table jumps in alarm, but it's Akito who's already prepared to run and catch her in a moment's notice. "You're all heeeere! I can't believe it!"

Even Fuyumi, who would have undoubtedly squeezed the breath out of her mother if she'd come in as she was _supposed to,_ stays rooted in her seat. All she can do is blink and gawk. Yuuichi has his hand curled up by his collar as if to clutch an invisible string of pearls. Kyoya probably doesn't look any better than them—likely he's gaping, too, in confusion over the fact that _that._ is his _mother?!_

It— _is_ Jin. Somehow. Some way. The same way the _Ecce Homo_ just _kind of_ looked like Jesus Christ after its "restoration." She's wearing heels, but how she's standing upright in them and how she kept up her usual temp is beyond Kyoya. She has a mink shawl, but it isn't around her shoulders so much as it is precariously draped around one and then wrapped around her opposite hip. For a split second Kyoya thinks her bun may just be lopsided, then he realizes there isn't one at all: she's chopped all of her hair so it's hardly an inch longer than a pixie cut.

"Hey!" She pouts. Her makeup is still impeccable, though it's hard to tell if her smoky eyes are supposed to be smoky or if they've just melted that way. "Aren't you going to say hello to your mother? I raised you better!"

She is drunk. Very drunk. Jin Ootori, who last got _slightly_ intoxicated twelve years ago at a Christmas gala and refused to have a single one of her children see her for five days after from sheer shame, is now falling-off-her-feet drunk.

"Mother," Akito finally says. He stands to his feet. Clearly still convinced she's about to topple. "Are you…okay?"

"Better than okay! Look at all of you…All my beautiful babies, sitting in one room." She stumbles in Yuuichi's direction, and finally he darts up to his feet to meet her halfway. Instead of collapsing, she throws herself onto him, squeezing him tight enough to suffocate. "Makes me so _nostalgic!"_

The chef peeks out of the door again at the commotion, and despite all four sober Ootoris trying to discreetly wave him back, Jin exclaims, "Oh, aren't all of you so _thoughtful?_ Serve the meal, serve! I've kept you all waiting long enough!"

She somehow manages to make it to her seat—whether he's more surprised with her balance or her ability to make out her name on the card, Kyoya is unsure.

As the kitchen starts to bustle behind the door, the Ootori children look at one another helplessly. Not even Yuuichi seems to know what to do. Jin picks up pieces of confetti like she's never seen such things in all her years.

Finally Kyoya speaks up. Trying to tiptoe around the obvious isn't going to help. "Mother, what's wrong?"

"I told you. Nothing!" Jin plucks up her napkin and spreads it across her lap. The movement is elegant, but she neglects to notice the confetti on the napkin, and doesn't blink as it all goes fluttering onto the floor and the table. "Actually, what's wrong is that I haven't gotten a single hello from my own children. So much for a welcome-back…"

Fuyumi gets out a "He—" before Kyoya continues, "You're drunk."

Jin bats her hand at him, makes a _puh-shaw_ sound. "Drunk! Listen to yourself, Akito!"

"I'm Kyoya."

"As if I'm one to ever get drunk! I had a few cocktails on the plane ride over. I'd hardly call that enough to get someone _drunk."_

Yuuichi has finally moved past the shock enough to start shaking his head—partly disdain, but it being his own mother, mostly disappointment. "Alright. Let's get you somewhere where you can lie down—"

Jin's hand slaps down on the table hard enough to pierce their ears. She's as much of a master of the Ootori glare as the rest of them, but it's just not working right now. She's managing an angry pout at best, and as the servers come forth from the dining room, they hesitate in the door to wonder if it's really worth it.

"I want all of you to…" Jin pauses for a moment, holding a finger over her pursed lips and closing her eyes briefly. Kyoya thinks she's collecting herself for a moment. Then he realizes she burped. "…to sit down so we can all have a nice family dinner. I will _not_ be coddled by my own children."

No words pass between any of them, but a conversation is had. Kyoya gets it through his glower that this is entirely unacceptable. Fuyumi begs through a shaking smile to not upset their mother any further. Akito exclaims through wide-eyed glancing that he just wants to know why she's acting like this. Yuuichi sighs through a slow blink that it's not like they can just wrestle her away from the table.

So they all sit down.

The servers provide the piping-hot soup before them. Kyoya's never been drunk before, but he imagines it doesn't inspire much appetite. Yet Jin is slurping away at her lobster bisque with no problem.

"So!" Fuyumi exclaims, her enthusiasm dampened but not extinguished. "We have a lot to catch up on."

Jin nods fervently. "We absolutely do. Now, how are things looking among our employees? I heard morale took quite a drop when we found out the Domens were leaving."

Yuuichi's jaw works side to side. He picks up his wine glass before the server has stopped pouring. "Though we did have a handful of withdraws, and we cut back on some slightly unnecessary positions, things have largely calmed down. Employees' dispositions have notably improved."

"It's a bit unfortunate," Akito adds. It's as hard for him as the rest of them to be casual. "Things have almost improved _too_ much. You can tell people have been making more of an effort just to make them less likely of losing their jobs."

Kyoya is reminded of the employee who tried to take care of the glove supply himself. _Can't disagree with that._

Jin snaps her fingers without actually getting them to snap. "There's an expression for that! All the hubbub must have…um…"

She thinks hard through her alcohol-riddled mind, but she's gritting her teeth with frustration. She squeezes her eyes shut, and it's then that Kyoya sees that her wine glass has already been filled. He looks between it and Fuyumi, back-to-back, _begging_ her to do something with it while Jin isn't looking.

Fuyumi hesitates, of course, but right when it seems like she's worked up enough courage to reach for the glass, Jin once again smacks down on the top of the table—this time with elation. Fuyumi snaps her hand back at once.

The metaphor that Jin had forgotten was: "Lit a fire under their asses!"

Jin Ootori was friends with both Ryuu Wada and Francisco Madruga. Despite living on other sides of the planet, the two men were the owners of the Madruwada coffee company—their coffees known for being highly expensive, highly popular, and overall the most delicious money could buy. The two men had first had their own companies, and each man had a handful of sites across the world where they harvested their gold. Brazil, obviously, but also Colombia, Panama, Vietnam, India…Madruga even had his very own Black Ivory made in Thailand. (Kyoya has been told that it is absolutely sublime, but he is not going anywhere near it.)

The two men joined their companies, and for thirty years lived in elite, blueblooded glory just from coffee beans. It was more accurate to say that Jin was friends with Wada's daughter, Sayaka Wada—and though she'd only met Madruga a few times, mostly when she and Miss Wada flew across the sea to visit his own daughter, Priscila. But when news broke that the two men had come to a horrible dispute and were considering splitting up their companies once again, the sheer stress that Miss Wada endured had Jin calling both men to beg them for a parlay.

The whole meeting took a grand total of thirty minutes, and everyone came out laughing. Jin Ootori was a woman who spoke so succinctly and smoothly that she'd managed to save an entire empire with just tea and crumpets.

She had also just screamed "asses" loud enough that the Madrugas probably heard her all the way in Brazil.

The Ootori children all react similarly: staring straight ahead for a minute, hardly even blinking. Akito was taking a sip of wine and just kept the glass there at his lips with the deadest expression Kyoya's ever seen on him.

Jin is just cackling. "I should've been here to see it…You know I pride myself on our employees just as much as the rest of you, but I just think it's real funny how everyone tries to do their job _extra_ well when they think they might lose it. It'd be nice if 'extra well' was the norm."

"Isn't that the truth?" Fuyumi chuckles. She definitely does not chuckle like that. "I'm just glad things have gone back to normal."

Jin's smile slowly but surely sank. She took a sip of her soup, and they all did the same. It was already getting cooler, but Kyoya didn't have much appetite.

"How was your…trip?" Akito asks.

"It went well. You know me; I could go to the worst cesspit in the world, and I'd still love to travel." Jin tries for a teasing grin, but it doesn't stay. "Why do you say 'trip' like that?"

She turns in her seat just so to face him head-on, propping her elbow up on the table but without resting her chin on her palm. This is the only way she ever puts her elbows on the table, and only in private. While she faces Akito, Fuyumi eyes her wine again.

"Well…" Akito clears his throat. Yuuichi is watching this entire exchange, unimpressed. "It just took longer than we were all expecting, that's all."

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all I was going to take longer. I got caught up in it all. We should all go to Bangladesh as soon as we're able. I forgot how magical it was." Jin takes another slurping sip of soup. "And I'm sorry that I haven't been so responsive this time. I hope you're not too angry with me."

 _Not angry, just disappointed,_ Kyoya thinks to himself.

He can't shake the feeling that something is just so terribly _wrong._ His mother does not get drunk. She does not go without contact for so long. Kyoya knows that this is supposed to be a nice, pleasant family dinner, but he can't just sit here and try to smile through this.

"Mother," he says.

She turns to him chipperly. Maybe he should've waited: Fuyumi's hand withdraws again. "Yes, love?"

"If I may ask, what kept you from returning when you heard that DomenMed was leaving?"

Fuyumi's chiding exclamation of his name is hardly more than a hushed whisper. Regret comes immediately. To be a killjoy is one thing, but has he lost his bearings again? Has he disrespectfully snapped at his parent?

Yuuichi speaks. "I think it's a fair question."

Jin reaches for her… _water_ glass (a sigh of relief is had) and doesn't take her eyes off of them as she drinks. For a second, she almost looks like her usual cool, sober self.

"The simple answer is that your father assured me he had everything under control." Jin tilts her head just so. "What's that face for, Yuuichi?"

The eldest son looks up from his bisque to meet his mother's gaze. His face is remarkably calm, and yet, somehow still unimpressed. "I don't believe I'm making a face."

"No. You don't…I have no idea how you do it, but you're the one person I know who can make a face without making a face. It's incredible." Her mother's drunken ramblings encourages Fuyumi to try for the wine glass again. "I just wouldn't blame you if you're wondering why I didn't come home anyway. Doesn't matter if it's 'handled' or not…It's a family emergency. Isn't that right?"

There is a sharpness creeping into her voice; her red smile has taken on a wry curve. Fuyumi hesitates; Akito fidgets. Kyoya only narrows his eyes because he knows she isn't looking at him. _What's going on?_

Yuuichi keeps his cool and only blinks back at her. "I suppose that's also a fair question."

"It is." Jin nods slowly, gaze sliding away from her son as getting lost in thought. Kyoya thinks she's leading towards the answer—a prologue as specific and spot-on as that seems introductory—but instead she flashes her teeth and trills, "But everything worked out just fine! We no longer have to deal with Daisuke Domen throwing his temper tantrums, our company is saved, and millions of jobs are spared."

Fuyumi finally closes her fingers around the stem of her glass and starts to pull away.

"And _Kyoya…"_

Jin locks eyes with him. He just waits. She doesn't look like his mother.

"My youngest boy, already engaged. And at the best time possible, am I right?" She laughs like she has people laughing with her. She does not. "But really, truly…I always knew this was going to be a bittersweet day. Elated to see you married, haunted by the realization of how old I am."

Jin presses a finger to her lips again. Burps.

"You _know…"_ As she says that, she straightens up in her seat, and keeps her lips pursed down on the 'oh.' "Your father and I had a conversation not too long ago about just this. How your…marital status would be handled." She flits a hand about. "It's so strange, the conversation lasted such a long time, yet we were on the same page. We agreed that we would just let you…"

Then she just flings an arm up, smiles, and leaves it at that.

… _What the hell does THAT mean?_ Kyoya's really trying to translate that in his mind, but what is the meaning of, _We agreed that we would just let you (swing arm as if having a stroke)?_ Even Yuuichi frowns in confusion. Where on Earth did their mother's succinctness go?

"I suppose it's a good thing that…Well, nevermind." Jin clasps her hands together. "I do think we should all have a toast for Kyoya, hm? We can say it however way we want, but I do believe he has single-handedly saved our family with his marriage. Come on, children."

She stands to her feet with a clatter of silverware. The rest of them reluctantly follow suit, but Kyoya is the last to stand. He doesn't feel like celebrating. He also doesn't feel like causing a scene, so he stands to his feet and picks up his wine glass.

"To Kyoya," Jin cheers, a gulps down a drink of her water.

There isn't so much a chorus of his name as there is one repetition, a mumble that _almost_ sounds like his name, and then nothing at all from Yuuichi. Kyoya just takes a sip of his wine.

As Jin sets her glass back down and settles into her seat, she catches sight of her daughter doing the same—except she's only putting down _one_ of her _two_ glasses of wine. "Fuyumi!"

Fuyumi freezes. Her hand goes stone still on the stem.

"Goodness, my dear, don't go so heavy on the wine." Jin picks up (unbeknownst to her) her secondary glass of water. "That much will knock you out cold."

Fuyumi breathes a sigh of relief. Then she blinks.

"Mother," Kyoya says, but it takes him a second to decide which of two questions to ask. "My apologies, but you didn't quite answer why it was you didn't come back—"

"Hold on." Jin holds up one perfectly manicured finger. Her dark eyes go from one seat to another. The fact that she's having to count only makes Kyoya worry more. "Why isn't your fiancée here?"

Kyoya answers, "She was busy. This was called on rather short notice."

("Shorter for some than others," Yuuichi grumbles. Fuyumi takes a deep breath.)

Jin pouts again. "That's such a shame. I was looking forward to meeting her."

"I'm sure she'd love to meet you soon." Kyoya takes another sip of bisque. It is officially room-temperature. "We can try to arrange a meeting."

"Do," chirps Jin. She takes another drink of water, and her lip curls in disappointment at the fact. "What's she like?"

Kyoya recites the rundown he's already memorized. "She's very…mature. Very polite. Unfortunately we don't share any classes, but anyone can tell she's passionate about her studies. And I have to admit, she's a great source of conversation."

Jin's eyebrows rise on her forehead. "My word, Kyoya. Am I detecting warmth in your tone?"

Kyoya makes a slight smile—punctuation. His acting skills have not failed him yet.

Fuyumi is smiling, too, but wide and unrestrained, almost dancing in her seat. "He's just being coy. They're already so infatuated with each other. You can tell as soon as she walks into the room."

"Well, isn't that splendid!" Jin raises a finger again and leans down to gather her clutch purse from the floor. Kyoya hopes there wasn't anything breakable in it, because its landing on the floor was not graceful. "Here, Kyoya. I don't know when I'll be seeing her, but I want her to get this as soon as possible. Just let her know it's from her future mother-in-law who can't wait to meet her."

She produces a thin red box and stretches across the table to give it to him. Kyoya takes it coolly enough. This is harmless. Actually, now that he thinks about it, should he be getting Kosuke gifts to further the message? Will he have to ask her to wear them in public as proof, since he's fairly sure she'd just toss them as soon as she made it home?

He opens the box and almost hums in amusement. Despite never meeting the girl, his mother has gotten a necklace of gemstones that are almost the exact shade of blue as Kosuke's eyes. This should be easy enough for her to wear, especially if he emphasizes it's not exactly from him. Whether he should call to tell her, or just wait until he sees her again, he…isn't…sure…

"Kyoya?" Jin asks, a bit alarmed. "Kyoya, what's wrong? Is there a gemstone missing?"

Kyoya hadn't meant to let his brows furrow, but he had reason. "Mother, her name isn't Kinuye."

In seconds flat, Fuyumi has stretched over to him to look. Even she can't stop herself from snaking her neck back in alarm. Jin blinks for a minute, all too aware that her other sons are borderline boggling at her, and exclaims, "Yes it is!"

Kyoya doesn't know how to argue _without_ being disrespectful. "No, it is not."

"Her name is _Kosuke,"_ Fuyumi exclaims. She rips the box from Kyoya's hands to look closer, as if the letters will somehow morph into the correct form.

Jin's mouth opens and closes several times. Kyoya hesitates for what to say next. He does not want to embarrass or ridicule his mother—she is much like Fuyumi in that he has a certain soft spot for her, but with the addition that she is his _mother._ It does not matter if he's a grown man now, he will not disrespect her. Yet, shouldn't she know his fiancée's name? Her future daughter-in-law's name?

_You still don't know what happened. If it was enough for this to slip her mind, it could very well be very bad…_

Kyoya gently takes the box back, closes it, and extends it back to his mother. Jin takes it back, eyes boggling. "It's only a necklace, Mother. It's nothing to worry about."

"Right…Nothing to worry about." Jin clears her throat and tucks the box away…only to pull out another one, with a brighter smile. "Well, at least you can still give her this!"

 _Something_ keeps Kyoya from getting his hopes up. A glance to Fuyumi tells him she's just as wary. The square black box is smaller, but when he opens it, the bracelet inside looks no less expensive. Diamond and sapphires loop around on a silver chain, coming together to a small pendent engraved with initials.

They're just…not Kosuke's.

"Mother."

Jin is once again looking ponderously into her water. She is very obviously debating if she should call for some more. She perks when she's called, though, and responds, "Yes?"

"What do you think Kosuke's initials are?"

"Excuse me?"

"Her initials." Kyoya raises his eyes up to her from the bracelet, only giving one slow blink. "What do you think her initials are."

"Oh, _honestly."_ Jin glowers at him. Again, the drunkenness dulls the effect. "Granted, I shouldn't have forgotten her first name so easily, but please don't let that make you believe I'm incapable of remembering her last! I am going to keep track of the family name that will be joining with hours!"

"Of course, Mother, I meant no offense. Obviously you know that Kosuke's last name is…?"

"Uchida. Her name is _Kosuke Uchida._ You have made your point." Finally her glower gets some of its heat back. It's just this one specific situation that keeps Kyoya from feeling any of it. "I don't appreciate your attitude, Kyoya."

She waits for an apology and does not get one. She looks at each of her children in turn. Akito is staring at her. Yuuichi is staring into his empty wine glass. Fuyumi is staring at Kyoya. Kyoya is staring at nothing at all.

"Her name is Kosuke Amida."

Jin's head snakes back so far it's a wonder that it doesn't fall off her shoulders. _"What?!"_

"Kosuke Amida. The only daughter of _Shigeo_ Amida. The Shigeo Amida that owns Amida Health, the medial technology company we are partnering with after DomenMed's leave that Kosuke will one day inherit."

His mother's face is thoroughly twisted. Appalled at him, at what he's saying. She's still looking at all of them, her eyes going back and forth like a tennis ball in a match, like she's waiting for them to announce that it's all just a silly joke. Unfortunately, no one is laughing. No one is so much as smiling. Finally all of her children are looking at her, and it is not to laugh and exclaim, "We're just kidding!"

Finally: "Shigeo Amida doesn't _have_ a daughter!"

Kyoya snaps the bracelet box shut because it's the only physical action his body will currently let him do.

For so long—days and days now—he had been so frustrated with the fact that his fiancée knew nothing about her own birthright. He, who had poured blood, sweat, and tears into _refusing_ the idea that he will never do anything for his family business, that he would do _everything_ for it, being engaged to a woman who he questioned knew the meaning of the word "conglomerate." It was so utterly embarrassing to him. A point-blank confirmation that he was the last ditch effort that his father just threw at the wall to see if it would stick.

The fact that his mother doesn't even know his fiancée's name is so much more embarrassing and appalling that for a long minute, Kyoya doesn't feel anything at all. It's so much that it numbs him.

He doesn't really mean to speak, but his mouth moves to ask, "What family with the name 'Uchida' did you think she was a part of?"

Jin does not answer. She stares into her tepid lobster bisque as if she'll just disappear from the room.

_This cannot be happening._

_Please, God, I am begging you, let this not be happening._

First he starts losing his mind, thinking that walking out of the first dinner with his fiancée after giving her the silent treatment is acceptable. Now his mother has lost every last part of her composure to become a drunk who didn't even know the name of the woman her son was marrying. Is Yoshio going to start ruffling his hair every time they meet? Will Fuyumi start giving him the cold shoulder?

Now, Kyoya is done with giving the benefit of the doubt. Something is wrong. He can tell on his siblings' faces that they know something is wrong. Jin is just as much of an Ootori as the rest of them. An extended vacation with no communication is one thing, but it there is no fathomable reason why she wouldn't come running home once she heard her family's empire was crumbling, why she didn't even know who her future daughter-in-law was.

So Kyoya slides the box back across the table and sits up straight. His brothers similarly brace themselves. Fuyumi pulls herself back into her seat, chewing her lip.

"I think," Kyoya says, very slowly, "that there are some things that we need to discuss."

"I second that," says Yuuichi. He raises his chin. "I think I speak for all of us when I say that something is clearly wrong and we need to know what."

Jin slowly—not steadily, but slowly—stands to her feet. She rolls her shoulders back, and straightens her mink shawl. She sniffs. She's trying to be herself.

"I understand and I appreciate the fact that you are all concerned." She clicks her tongue. "I have been away for quite some time. I have not been communicating to you all properly. I had every intent and purpose of discussing all of this. _However,_ I was hoping that…"

She pauses, and closes her eyes. Not quite burping, but Kyoya doesn't think she's pausing, either.

"I was hoping that we could first have a calm dinner first. You may have been trying to act otherwise, but it doesn't take a genius to tell that none of you were very keen on this from the moment I walked through the door."

To Kyoya's surprise—and from the look of it, Yuuichi's and Akito's—it is Fuyumi who blurts out, "You came here _drunk._ "

"Again: I am not drunk. Stop insinuating as much." Holding her head a little higher, Jin continues, "I am sorry if I have behaved in such a way that upset you, but I am not going to sit here and be scolded. Now, if we could just…"

Jin closes her eyes again, but this time, she presses her palm against the lacquered table top. Yuuichi reacts before Kyoya even understands what's happening. He's already turned in his chair.

"If we could just return to a…a pleasant…"

Both palms press against the tabletop. Jin swallows deeply. Fuyumi looks at her brothers helplessly, but Kyoya only frowns deeper.

"Yuuichi."

Yuuichi's jaw pulls tight. "Yes?"

"Please come here."

His footsteps seem deafening as he closes the distance between himself and his mother. Jin holds her chin high, as if it will change the fact that her first son towers over her by a foot. For one second, her only movement is the bobbing of her throat as she smiled.

Primly, she tells him, "I need you to hold something for me."

Yuuichi squints at her. "Alright?"

Jin nods…and falls.

So short isthe distance between her and Yuuichi that Kyoya at first thinks she's trying to hug him. But then he sees that her arms are limp, and her face looks uncomfortably mashed against Yuuichi's blazer. After a moment, Yuuichi's arms seem to be the only thing keeping her upright.

To his credit, Yuuichi at first only blinks a few times. Then, like water freezing to ice, his eyes go steelier and steelier realizing what's happening.

Fuyumi is breathless. "Is she…?"

For the first time in his entire life, Yuuichi says, "Yep."

Akito finally rushes over to help, but what is there to do? Kyoya follows close behind Fuyumi, feeling like nothing more than a spectator. Their mother isn't bleeding, she has no broken bones, she's had no drastic injuries for them to worry about. She's just so intoxicated that she'd passed out.

"What do we do? What do we do, what do we do?" Fuyumi oh-so-gently pulls her mother's face away from Yuuichi's front. Her blushed cheek has left the faintest pink mark on his blazer. Then, realizing that she doesn't exactly have anywhere else to _put_ her mother's head, Fuyumi just as gently places it back. "Do we—We should lay her down on her side."

Akito's eyes seem likely to boggle out of his skull, especially when they turn to Fuyumi. "Why?!"

"In case she vomits," snaps Fuyumi. "You're the one that works in a hospital! You lay them on their side so they don't choke if they vomit."

Kyoya carefully unwinds his mother's mink shawl from her elbows. It isn't doing her any good anymore. "Let's work on actually _lying her down_ first."

Though he is far from smiling about it, Yuuichi carefully lifts his mother up from beneath her knees and back. Akito watchsd them go through the doorways to make sure Jin doesn't get clipped, and Fuyumi keeps a hand on her mother's ear in case her head starts to loll. Kyoya walks ahead to the nearest guest bedroom to open the door and pull back the blankets on the bed.

"Easy, easy," Fuyumi whispers as Yuuichi gently lays her down. Looking more helpless than Kyoya has ever seen him, Akito goes to taking off his mother's heels from her feet.

As soon as his mother is safely on her side, Kyoya reaches down and pinches her earlobe as hard as he can. At once, Jin makes a muffled squawk and swats at his hand.

At the same time, Fuyumi swats his shoulder. "Why did you do that?!"

"To see if she'd respond." Kyoya doesn't mean to snap at his sister in such an _'Obviously!'_ tone of voice, but the sheer bizarreness of what's happening is building up too much. "We should probably call a doctor."

"Hold on," Yuuichi scoffs, pulling his phone from his pocket.

Fuyumi kneels down to Jin's side, asking, "Yuuichi, why don't you check her?"

"I'm calling a doctor," is all Yuuichi says coolly, but then he glares down at his sister as she grabs at his pant leg and gives it a sharp tug.

"Let Kyoya call the doctor while you check her. It's your mother, not some annoying paperwork to finish!"

Though he glares daggers at her, he does give the phone to Akito, who fumbles to carry on the explanation to the doctor on the other side of the line. Kyoya keeps prodding at his own mother like he's five years old and she's a weird new animal he's found in the grass. Thankfully, Jin keeps murmuring and squirming, at one point mumbling something that sounds close to, _"Stop it, Yoshio…"_

He steps out of the way as Yuuichi kneels down. He's more hands-on, pressing his palm to her forehead, lowering his head to her chest to check her heart rate and breathing. When he tries to open her eyelids, she swats at him hard enough to hear.

Yuuichi is tending to Jin, Fuyumi is waiting to do anything at a moment's notice, and Akito is confirming on the phone that the doctor is on his way. All the while, Kyoya is just standing off to the side. Dumbly, he checks his watch. It hasn't even been an hour.

 _What the hell is happening?_ He thinks, and even the voice of his own thoughts sounds tired.

As he lowers his hand, he realizes that he is worthless…again. Just standing aside and watching, not contributing to the family effort. It's such a stupid thought, not at all called for, but Kyoya feels awfully…'extra.' Not needed, not useful, just kind of _there_. The same way he feels whenever he's in an Ootori Medical meeting.

He gives Fuyumi a light touch on the shoulder, telling her, "I'm going to go tell the chefs to leave."

She just jerks her hand at him. Kyoya hesitates in the doorway: the image of all his siblings around his mother seems oddly picturesque. The exact opposite of what the Ootori family is supposed to look like. Despite his less than stellar feelings for the woman, Kyoya is thankful now more than ever that Kosuke did not come tonight.

* * *

The doctor's verdict has them all sighing in relief. Jin is certainly drunk, but he's seen people drink much, much more and stayed on their feet. So essentially, it was just a 'Jin' thing. She didn't seem to be in any danger of anything life-threatening. He instructs them to keep an eye on her, make sure she's on her side just in case she vomits to avoid choking—Fuyumi looks like she's _about_ to smile before she remembers that now is _not_ the time—and to call for help again if she gets worse.

In a way, it's almost like their mother has nothing more than a bad cold. Even now, watching her slumbering on the bed, Kyoya thinks she looks rather peaceful.

She is the only one who feels as such.

"Honestly, Yuuichi!" Fuyumi's voice sounds sharp, even muffled behind the door. "Could you stop acting so annoyed for five minutes? Are you not worried at all?"

" _Worrying_ won't do her any good, will it?" Yuuichi drones back. "There's four of us here. Even if Akito left with me, you and Kyoya are more than capable of using a cellphone."

"It's going to take a minute for an ambulance to come if it needs to. It would be _better_ if you were there to help until it arrived." There's a very brief pause. "Don't _sigh_ at me, Yuuichi. Your mother is passed out and all you're thinking about is getting home to sign more papers. I know paperwork is your one true love, but she'll wait for you, I promise."

"Screaming at me isn't going to help, either. If you want a medic on hand, fine. Akito can handle it just fine. You know that. The only reason you want us all to be here is because we're _family."_

Fuyumi snaps something back at him, but Kyoya decides to just drown them out. On the other side of the bed, Akito sighs.

 _It's no use, Fuyumi,_ Kyoya wants to tell her. _Yuuichi's made up his mind; there's no changing it now._

"Mother didn't call you either, did she?"

Akito almost startles him with the question. He isn't looking at Kyoya, just Jin. She snorts in her sleep.

Sighing, Kyoya replies, "No. I hadn't heard from her since she left."

"Not even when the news broke out?" Kyoya shakes his head. "I just can't think of a reason…"

He trails off, but Kyoya gets the point. He agrees. No matter where she was, there was no way his mother would hear so little that she wouldn't even know Kosuke's name.

 _True, I never talked about her over any voice messages,_ he thinks, _but why would I ever think she'd need to be informed? She would have known I was engaged before_ I _did._

Akito swallows. Kyoya hears it from the other side of the bed. "I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. I asked, but she would never answer."

It occurs to him that this is the first "meaningful" conversation they'd had in a while. Between the meetings they'd attend together, or even just the text messages they sent one another, their communication had been solely work-related for long enough for _this_ to be considered weird. Though their current situation isn't exactly "normal," either.

"Something _is_ wrong," says Kyoya. "She just won't tell us."

Akito doesn't say anything. For the first time, Kyoya tries to _guess_ what the problem is. Did it happen before or after she left? Was it something so stressful that it had her lengthening her relaxing getaway, or was it ever a getaway at all? Was it something that could hurt Ootori Medical? Had she done something that might embarrass all of them, and was that why she refused to speak of it?

Something is very wrong with his mother and Kyoya's topmost concern is how it's going to affect their company. He isn't proud of himself.

After what felt like _hours_ of Fuyumi and Yuuichi hissing at each other behind the door, but what was more likely a few more minutes, Fuyumi returns. She looks outraged. It's a very odd expression for her, but it's a look that certainly reminds that she's as Ootori as the rest of them. From her curled lip, Kyoya wonders if she deliberated using one of her heels to bludgeon her brother's head in.

"Okay," she breathed in a tone that spoke to how _not_ okay everything was, "It's just going to be us. Unless you want to leave too, Akito?"

To his credit, it seems that Akito was going to decline even before his sister shot daggers at him with her eyes. "No, I'll stay. I'll just…get caught up on work tomorrow."

Fuyumi looks a bit relieved. Not much, but a bit. "Alright. Well, we need to keep an eye on her through the night."

Kyoya stood back up to his feet with a sigh. He should have figured it would be a long night. "We'll take turns, then. Four hours for each of us. I'll take the first shift."

"No, you'll take the last shift." Fuyumi is already taking her chandelier earrings out. " _I'll_ take the first shift."

"I usually stay up past midnight anyway."

"Which is why I want you to take the last shift." She prods his leg with the toe of her shoe. "Go on and get to bed. Akito will come get you at five."

 _It'll be hard to go to bed four hours earlier than normal,_ Kyoya thinks, but he digresses. Fuyumi take his place at Jin's side. He doubts that he's going to be able to go sleep at all.

* * *

He surprises himself. At five in the morning (or rather, 5:06 in the morning), he's waking up to Akito shaking his shoulder and murmuring, "Your turn." Kyoya crawls out of bed and tiptoes around in the dim early light to get dressed. He deliberates if he should even bother changing out of his pajamas, but in the end, he goes ahead and puts on slacks and a button-up.

Four hours go by in near silence. At the very least, he gets back the work time he'd thought he'd lost. He spends the early morning hours finishing up his latest workload, then the Project. Or maybe it's _Projects,_ now. He's come up with a dozen different budgets at this point. Each one is a different escape route for them—if they're ever in the same position as they were with DomenMed again, then _maybe_ they can use one of these to save themselves. Kyoya sincerely hopes that they will never, ever have to, but the experience has him wanting a plan just in case. Every few minutes he looks over to his mother. Every ten minutes, he gets up and makes sure she's still breathing and hasn't gone cold.

At 9:34, when he'd usually be in the very middle of his day, Jin starts to stir. Kyoya shuts his laptop at once and goes to her side. For a minute, she just stirs, a few short, sleepy sounds coming from her throat.

At last she opens her eyes—they're puffy from sleep, and her smoky eyeshadow is far past intentional at this point—and stares dazedly around the room. It takes a minute before she even sees Kyoya, and when she does, she slurs, "Yoshio?"

Kyoya isn't disturbed that she's confused. Last night she'd probably been more intoxicated than she'd been in her entire life. Kyoya is disturbed by the tone of her voice. She almost sounds _angry,_ like she's warning him to say 'no.' Which he does.

"It's Kyoya," he says, and Jin's face contorts in confusion.

"Kyoya? What are you doing here?"

"I live here." Jin looks around the room once again, and Kyoya sighs. He's going to have to recap everything. "After you told Fuyumi that you were coming home, you came here to have dinner with her, Yuuichi, Akito, and me. You were very drunk and you passed out halfway through. You're in one of the guest bedrooms."

It doesn't seem like she hears him that much, but the more he speaks, the more Jin's eyes clear with understanding. When he finishes, she finally looks wide-awake.

The first thing she says is, again, "Kyoya."

"Yes, Mother."

"I need you to turn around." When Kyoya frowns, justifiably, she adds, "Just turn around."

Awkwardly, Kyoya obeys and turns his back to her. He's left staring at the door. "Can I ask why?"

There's a shuffle of fabric. Just judging by her muffled voice, she's stuffed her face into her pillow.

"Because I can't have you looking at me right now."

Kyoya sighs, and he isn't even sure if it's in relief. She finally sounds sober…er. More like herself, certainly. But with the million questions that last night gave him, he feels annoyed that she isn't immediately answering them all, even if her memories are shot.

"Mother," he says, "I don't think any less of you, I promise."

"You're lying. I can tell in your every syllable that you're _lying._ " She groans. "I'm going to have to spend weeks in here. I won't look presentable enough to be in public—I won't even be able to look at myself in the mirror to brush my _teeth,_ let alone do my make up."

"You drank a little too much alcohol and passed out. You haven't committed any crimes, and you haven't hurt anyone."

"Don't try to console me, Kyoya, let me be ashamed." She pauses—can she even breathe right now?—and asks, "Are the others still here?"

"No, it's just me, Fuyumi, and Akito now."

"Oh, that's nice. I'll only have to face seventy-five percent of my children in this disgusting state. Oh, strike me down..."

Kyoya sighs again. "I think your health is more important right now, Mother. Do you feel nauseous? Do you want some water?"

"I want to _die._ "

"I can't help you with that, but I can get you some water."

"No. No, just…Turn around. Look at me, just don't _see_ me."

"Alright." Kyoya actually thinks he can do that. He turns back around to look at his mother, and makes himself just see that. No puffy eyes or line of drool going down her chin, just his mother.

She sniffs, trying to straighten herself. She runs her hands through her hair, but there are too many flyaways to count. She also seems to remember that she's chopped her hair short, because for a moment she looks confused as to why her hair isn't winding between her fingers. But she composes herself, pursing her lips, rolling her shoulders back.

"I owe you an apology," she says. "All of you, but I'll do it one at a time so I can get through it better…I should not have allowed myself to become so intoxicated before I arrived. My behavior was wildly inappropriate and offensive."

 _At least she's apologizing,_ he tells himself. Still, he worries that last night wasn't just "last night." He prays that it was just an abnormal occurrence and not the finale of a weeks-long psychotic episode.

"You don't forgive me."

His jaw works side-to-side. "I forgive you, Mother, but I have some questions that I would like to be answered."

Her composure slips again. She blinks. "Questions?"

It's hard to keep his temper down. Is he talking to a brick wall? It's as if she's confused _on purpose._ If this was anyone but his own mother, Kyoya would probably be smashing his head against the wall right now. As-is, he takes a breath and speaks carefully.

"You went on a very long vacation and didn't talk to any of us for weeks. Even when DomenMed left and we were struggling to keep everything together, you didn't come back. Despite knowing that I'm engaged, you did not know my fiancée's name or the family she comes from. Then, when you finally return home, you're so drunk that you faint. Something is wrong…and I wish you would tell me what it is."

Again, the more he speaks, the more her eyes glaze over. Even though he doesn't want her to be offended, he thinks he'll be angry if she does. These are real, genuine, _serious_ concerns that she shouldn't just dismiss because she's the Ootori matriarch who can say and do as she pleases. Were her closing words from the previous ending her, or the alcohol? To be faced with questions she needs to answer, and then to raise her nose and call them "disrespectful"…

Oh, hey. It's Kosuke all over again.

 _Thankfully,_ to his _immense_ relief, Jin's eyes go down instead of narrowing at him. She picks at a tiny strand on the Egyption cotton sheets. She may not have had any reason to be sheepish in her life. She's Jin Ootori; 'sheepish' isn't in her dictionary.

Yet that's the only word for describing the look on her face. For just one moment—one moment, a mere second, no more—she looks as though she's about to cry, and sheer _panic_ grips Kyoya. It's gone as quickly as it comes.

"I will," she says at last. Her tone is firm, as if more to herself than him. "I will. Bring your siblings in here first. You should all hear this."

Not quite excited, Kyoya does as he's told. Akito and Fuyumi have only just arrived to the dining room for breakfast. Akito quickly but calmly sets his coffee down. Fuyumi lets her spoon of oatmeal clatter to the table (still covered in dollar-store confetti, to Kyoya's slight annoyance) and they all return to the guest bedroom. Jin has pulled herself up to a sitting position, legs crossed primly over the side, and though she has her chin held high, her eyes are still downcast.

"Mother," Fuyumi sighs as soon as she steps in. "Are you okay? How do you feel?"

"Nothing a bottle of ibuprofen won't fix, love. Just come here."

Akito swallows, nervous. "Do you want some water? The chefs are making breakfast."

"No, no more dillydallying. I need to say this to you all now. One of you, call Yuuichi."

Fuyumi does, puffing up once again as she taps the digits into her phone. Yuuichi picks up quickly, but when Fuyumi says, "Mother's awake and she needs to talk to all of us," her next sentence is, "Mother said so, Yuuichi! Stop being so stubborn!"

Jin snaps her fingers once. She keeps the phone to her ear just long enough to say, "Yuuichi, listen and listen well," hits the 'speaker' button, and gives the phone back to Fuyumi. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Mother," Yuuichi _sulks._

"Good. Now. Children." Jin folds her hands over her crossed knee. They will always and forever be referred to as 'children', even though the youngest of them all is twenty-one and the oldest thirty-two. "There is something that I need to tell you all that you should have known a long, long time ago. Though I admit that part of the blame for not telling you sooner falls to my own embarrassment, it was mostly the wish of your father that you not be told right away."

Her voice takes on a slight mocking tilt, but this isn't new. For the length of their parents' marriage—over thirty years now—they were no stranger to small, petty skirmishes. Jin poked at her husband's stubbornness and pride and in turn he often scoffed at her emotionality. It didn't mean they were any less happily married.

"However, seeing as how _rightfully_ upset you are all now, I see it only fair to tell you now."

Yuuichi's electric voice cuts in, "If Father didn't want this discussed, then perhaps—"

"You're going to hear this, and now. If your father is upset with me for _overriding his authority,_ then I will deal with that on my own. Now, listen."

Kyoya doesn't know what to think. Doing the exact opposite of what Yoshio Ootori wants is always a bad idea—borderline fatal. Each and every Ootori Medical employee who has dismissed his demands thinking that their own was better has been swiftly fired. The Ootori family are no strangers to this, either, especially the children. Growing up, speaking up when they were told to be quiet, staying up when they were told to go to bed, any and all kind of disobedience was quickly punished.

And of course, Kyoya, who was told time and time again, from the day he was born, to be mindful of everything he said, did, and took part in, was slapped across the face in front of all his peers when his father found out he was wasting time in a _host club._ "Maintain your image," he was told, and then he joined a club dedicated to flirting with girls.

Later, he was instructed to keep out of the affair with the Tonnere Group. He did not, and even today, years later, his father is enraged.

On the other hand, just because his father was the one to extend the family name, it does not mean that his wife is in any way, shape, or form expected to just submit to him. If Kyoya ever had a problem with the things his father said or did, he'd force himself _not_ to. But even so, sometimes he thought ( _never saying a word)_ that his father sometimes forgot that his wife was his equal. He sometimes made decisions without her input, and her just concerns with such were dismissed as him "knowing better."

So he doesn't know whether he, like Yuuichi, should advise his mother not to go against his father's wishes, or if he should be like his other siblings, and accept that she is just as able to do as she pleases.

They stand there, waiting for Jin to speak. And they wait. And they wait.

Finally, after a good fifteen seconds of silence, Jin says, "Maybe I should do this one-by-one after all, I can't stand all of you seeing me like this—"

All four of them say together: _"Mother."_

"Yes, yes, of course. Just…Turn around."

Kyoya has to do it first so Fuyumi and Akito can see what she means. Both of his older siblings—and perhaps Yuuichi, too, even hearing this through the phone—sigh as they turn their backs to her.

Concern starts to build again. Kyoya tells himself not to worry about the company, or even the rest of them, and to just worry about his mother and what's happening to her, but it's hard. He remembers the panic and fear when DomenMed left, and if something of a similar caliber is coming, he doesn't know what he'll do.

Jin says, slowly, carefully, enunciating her every syllable with clear precision:

"Your father and I are divorcing."

Kyoya had a million questions.

Now he has ten million.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason FFN is being very finnicky right now and won't let me upload. Ah, well--here it is, AO3. Thank you all so much for your kind reviews! <3 It means so much to me.


	19. Tokyo Streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While walking the streets of Tokyo, Kosuke meets someone unexpected.

Kosuke finds that cooking when she's upset helps. The kitchen is where she feels the most at home. Chopping up vegetables and stirring soup in a pot is the same to her as sinking into a warm bath.

Still, she has to be a certain _kind_ of upset to cook. There's "sad" upset and then there's "angry" upset. "Sad" upset is the one she's most familiar with. When she worries about their future savings, when she has those days where for _some_ reason she just misses Okina and Kohta so much, and time and time again remembering those happy, warm days when her parents were still living and laughing...Did making takoyaki magically fix them? No. But it helps distract her.

Now, when a stranger knocks on the front door to screech about how OUTRAGED they are that they're indefinitely closed and that their entire vacation is ruined, when she has to clean crayon off of the walls because Hitsuji _will not stop_ drawing on them, and when she remembers the loan shark and his stupid greasy smile or the Blue Suit and his disgusting clammy hand on her arm...Kosuke stays away from the kitchen when she's _that_ kind of upset. The anger always comes out in the food.

She's stuck with this for over a year now. This morning, she is breaking tradition. She is cooking omelets and thinking about her argument with Kyoya at the same time.

So she is cooking and she is _furious_.

She almost obliterates an egg cracking it open, she nearly crushes the whisk in her bare hand, and she honestly thinks she might as well turn off the stovetop because she has _plenty_ of heat coming off of her own skin.

When he was cold to her at the dinner, she gave him the benefit of the doubt. When he left, she put it upon herself to try and make amends. But now? _Now_ , after that honest-to-God _lecture_ that gave her flashbacks to when her teachers scolded her for talking in class? No. No, no, _no_. If that guy wants them to be on civil turns, it's going to be on _him_ , because she's not making any efforts anymore.

Just—okay. Kosuke doesn't like to "brag" about what she's been through. When Haruhi complains to her that she's lost her favorite pair of socks in the wash, does Kosuke start screaming about how much worse she has it, that Haruhi's dad is still alive and she doesn't have two kids to take care of and a loan shark to deal with and a stranger to marry and a whole company to run? No, because that's stupid. Everyone has their own personal struggles, and screaming "But mine are _worse_!" won't make her look like the martyr who made someone open their eyes and appreciate how good they have it. It'll make her look like a brat who's so bitter that she pretends that her problems are the only things in the world.

But just... _just_...All this _crap_ that she has had to deal with for so long now, and Kyoya's all wound up because she might make him _look_ _bad_?

She'll reiterate what she said before: second-hand embarrassment is not worse than first-hand embarrassment. Did he really think that standing there speechless like an idiot while people asked her questions that should be no-brainers to her made her _proud_? Did he think that she _looked forward_ to being shoved into the spotlight without a script like that?

Also, way to show some sympathy there, Kyoya! Take a look at this person who is so very clearly struggling, who is trying her best but has to deal with so much in such a short amount of time. Watch as she's humiliated in front of a crowd of strangers and ask yourself: How is this going to affect _me_?

And walking out of their dinner? Now Kosuke isn’t just going to forgive and forget that. He doesn’t just get to pick and choose when “image matters.” Walking out of their dinner like Kosuke has a horrible odor that he can’t stand any longer! Oh, sure, that’s just _great._ Being unable to talk about a subject she hasn’t had _two seconds_ to learn about? _Unacceptable._

She’s not accepting that apology, either. If it was physically painful for him to say it, it wasn’t an apology.

Sometimes— _sometimes—_ Kosuke has to admit, it does make her the “sad” kind of upset. She doesn’t want this for the rest of her life. Call her a hopeless romantic, but when she used to think of her married future, she imagined her husband coming up behind her to kiss her on the cheek while she was cooking breakfast for them, crawling under the covers and snuggling into his arms, all those stupid-sappy things they did in the romcoms, like randomly slow-dancing for no reason. Not going at each other’s throats like rabid animals fighting over a kill.

Then she goes through their conversation again and she goes right back to being “angry” upset.

Which reminds her: she quickly takes the pan off the heat and brings it over to the plate. She just very nearly burned Minami’s omelet and Kosuke Nakahara _does not burn good food._ On top of that, she doubts the chefs want her in here any longer, even if they’re taking the time to do early lunch prep or not. The kids had begged— _on their knees_ —for her specifically to make omelets. The kitchen staff stepped aside and let her use the kitchen, but the stink-eye was abundant.

She’s come to the dining room for breakfast for several days now and the image of Hitsuji and Minami sitting at the _colossal_ table still unnerves her. Everything about this place still does. She feels like she’s sleeping in an art museum and not a house. It’s just too big, it’s just too _much,_ no matter how many times she reminds herself that other people have it _much_ worse.

She set down Hitsuji’s (ham and cheese) and Minami’s (ham and mushrooms) and finally sits down to eat her own (French-style, with gruyere cheese and chives, a recipe she’s been wanting to try for _so long now.)_ She sits down on the other side of them, feeling like she’s too far away. If she can block everything else, then it can seem like a normal family breakfast.

"So," she says, putting on her best everything-is-normal smile. "What are you guys going to do today?"

Hitsuji answers through a bite of omelet, "We're making pots!"

"Pots?"

"Pots!" Hitsuji drops his fork and starts lifting his hands up and down, as if wet clay is spinning between them.

Minami says, "Someone named Mister Joji is going to come to our music class and show us how he plays the violin."

See, back home, Hitsuji's arts and crafts were simple things like finger-painted paper plates and paper necklaces and toilet paper rolls that looked like little people. Nowadays, he does pottery. And for recess, he can ride around the playground on the 210,000-yen bike that each child gets. And since yesterday was Thursday, they all got to go to the swimming pool! The indoor heated swimming pool! The indoor heated swimming pool with a miniature water park, which was also indoor!

Minami is too young to know it, but "Mister Joji" just so happens to be Joji Takashima, the world-renowned violinist whose most recent concert at Suntory Hall sold out of tickets within twelve seconds of their availability. In science, part of their studies includes taking care of their class pet: a palm cockatoo, which, according to a quick internet search, can cost upwards of 1,600,000 yen. They also have their own playground, the centerpiece of which is an absolutely safe but nevertheless daunting _five-story jungle gym_ with six rope bridges and three twenty-feet slides. Other features of this playground include twenty spring horses that have all been hand-painted by French artist Hippolyte Favre-Jaccoud and a thirty-seat carousel the size of a boat.

This is their new normal. Of course, they are always over-the-moon about every delight the new day brings—Minami begged her to come with her one time just to _look_ at the carousel, she just had to _look_ at it, and Hitsuji talked about the swimming pool for an hour straight. Hitsuji has never done anything for an hour straight in his _life_. Kosuke won't be a sourpuss and drag down their fun. She just doesn't want them to be spoiled.

Of course, to be completely honest, she's jealous. Her classes are long and unforgiving. She would nod off in boredom in every single one if she hadn't come up with an idea: she pretends that she's learning all about management and economics because she's going to open her own restaurant one day. Granted, knowing that she will be responsible for a multi-million company should probably be more reason so stay focus, but whatever works, works.

"Kiori is having a slumber party next Saturday," says Minami. Kiori seems to be on a one-way route to becoming Minami's new best friend. "She wants me to come."

"That's great!" Kosuke says. ("That's great!" Hitsuji repeats.) She really, really means it. Any proof that Minami is even a _little_ happy here, that she's making friends and enjoying school and most importantly, not missing home is music to her ears. "Do you want to go?"

Minami stops cutting up her omelet—she now prides herself in cutting up her food before she eats, to show how grown up she is—and asks, "Are we going to go home next Saturday?"

It's not that Kosuke forgot, it's that she had her fingers crossed Minami may just forget about that. She _does_ intend to take them back home soon, but between...well, everything, she may have made next weekend a bit too close of a due date. She hasn't called any of Minami's friends' parents to see about a playdate, either, and she knows Minami wants that.

"We can," she says at last. She also starts cutting up her omelet. "Or we can go next week."

She makes a quick mental note to see if she can schedule this. She knows her routine is at Shigeo's mercy now, but maybe he has enough of a heart to let them go for a weekend.

Minami does not immediately answer. Kosuke almost wants to slap herself. _Way to put her on the spot, genius._ "Why don't you think about it? It's no big deal."

"Okay," Minami says at last.

They eat in silence for a stretch—she has _got_ to make French omelets more often, good _heavens_ —until Hitsuji chirps up with egg on his lip, "What're we gonna do tomorrow?"

"Hm...I don't know. We'll figure it out when you get home from today, alright? I'm sure there's lots and lots of stuff for us to do around here."

"The park?" asks Hitsuji. "Can we go to the park? Can we go see a movie?"

"We'll see. Go ahead and eat breakfast, Little Man. It'll get cold."

Hitsuji starts wolfing it down because he loathes cold omelet with a burning passion. Then his chewing slows—not stopping entirely, but slowing. “What’s wrong, bud?”

He hums, unsure. “Tastes…angry.”

Kosuke just kind of nods and tries to hide the guilt on her face. He keeps eating.

Kosuke initially dismisses the idea of the movies—it cost them quite a pretty penny last time—and then remembers that they could very well do that.

She doesn't have to count their spendings anymore. She doesn't have to calculate a budget in her head every time she makes a purchase. She can start throwing money at almost anything, and that's not a feeling she's used to. She'd been asked before what she would do if she had a million yen to spend on anything she wanted, and she'd come up with loads of answers, like an all-designer closet and the biggest TV in the world, those kind of things. Now that she does it, the idea of simply going to one restaurant and ordering something a bit expensive still seems bizarre.

Oh, there are so many things to get used to, and she hasn't even had a glimpse of it all yet...

Acually, no, that's not true. Kyoya gave her a glimpse at what their married life will be like.

She stabs a piece of omelet with her fork and shoves it into her mouth.

A few minutes later, Miss Ayumu appears in the doorway, as prim and proper as Kosuke remembers her. Kosuke immediately straightens up, but the children only glance at her curiously, never once stopping their meal.

"Miss Amida." Miss Ayumu does a tiny little bow. "Mister Amida is here to speak with you."

Kosuke blinks dumbly. "He's here? Now?" Kosuke hasn't seen him in person for days now. All of their communication has been over the phone. It gave her relief.

"Yes. He says it's important."

"Oh. Okay. Um..." Kosuke looks down at the table. Should she offer him breakfast? Should she ditch the table and go to him? Or does she just 'send him in'? "Just a moment, please."

Miss Ayumu's eyes flatten on her. She is not very impressed with Kosuke and Kosuke can tell. "This is Mister Amida's estate, Miss Amida. I'm afraid he will not be waiting, 'just a moment' or otherwise."

She turns on her heel, and Kosuke goes into a panic. Shigeo hasn't even seen the kids, and she wants to keep it that way. She doesn't want him to have anything to do with them, she doesn't want him to _look_ at them, let alone speak with them. And now he's on his way, and Minami and Hitsuji are still eating breakfast.

"Minami, Hitsuji, go finish getting ready for school. Now, now, now!" The two children scramble. Minami picks up her plate to take with her. Hitsuji stuffs the rest of his omelet into his mouth like a chipmunk. "No, don't—Okay, sure, just go! Go, go. You're just going to have to go to school without me today."

Minami runs for it. Hitsuji still has balloon-cheeks and waddles instead of runs away. Kosuke rearranges their plates, but doesn't know how to make dirty dishes and bits of uneaten egg look presentable. She stands to her feet, knowing Shigeo would not want her to be sitting down, and steels herself—

Hitsuji pokes his head back into the room. "Bye, Kosuke!"

Kosuke bites down on her lip, half-loving her adorable little brother and half-wanting to scream at him to _go already_. "Bye!"

_Finally_ , he leaves. Not one second later, Shigeo walks in. He's wearing a light gray three-piece with a dark green tie. All-business, dead-serious, and with the air of a sophisticated jackass—just as Kosuke remembers him.

Still, she keeps things civil and greets him: "Good morning."

Shigeo looks at her up and down. Two words in and he's already giving her his signature "gum on the bottom of my shoe" look. "For future reference, this is not how you'll want to present yourself when you're meeting anyone."

What? Kosuke looks down and—oh. Right.

She'd found a sleeping gown in her drawers when she was packing stuff away the other day. It, too, was pure satin, a soft pink and flowed like air. Kosuke decided not to wear it and to just have a _semblance_ of the old life by wearing her usual pajamas. Except her usual pajamas consisted of an oversized T-shirt decaled with a cartoon cat wearing a sleeping mask and baggy pants patterned with donuts, cupcakes, and candy.

No, she wouldn't want to present herself to anyone looking like this.

"Well." Kosuke wills herself not to be embarrassed. She's glad she's facing him. She doesn't want him to see the back, which has another decal, this time of the cat's tail. Complete with a little cartoon bow and bell. "I didn't know you were coming."

"This is my estate. I don't have to announce my intent to come."

That is fair. Though Kosuke is incredibly unnerved knowing that Shigeo could always be in the next room over without her knowing.

"I'm on my way to work now," Shigeo tells her. "I'm meeting with Mr. Ootori today. I stopped by because there are some things I need to give you."

First he extends a packet of stapled papers to her. "More information that I expect you to know about Amida Health."

Kosuke bites her lip and takes them. She's been trying to 'study' up on her Amida Health knowledge every day and night, but nothing is sticking. It's page after page after page of names and numbers. She needs to memorize a list of every item the company has ever manufactured—and that's a list that goes back _years_. And she has to do the exact same thing for Ootori Medical. If Kosuke got all of her papers together into one stack, they'd probably be heavy enough to take down an airplane.

"Alright."

"What about the information I've already given you?"

She _almost_ says 'what about it?' but stops herself. She now knows that when she talks to Shigeo, she needs to second-guess everything she says. She should bring down her chances of ticking him off from 95% to a nice 75%. "I'm reading up on it every day."

"You need to get everything in your head and keep it there. Tattoo it all inside your eyelids if you need to." Shigeo hands her a slip of paper, marked over in chickenscratch. "I'm going to be sending you on two errands today. You need to go to Carmine D'Atra. You're going to need a..." Shigeo looks down at her donut-cupcake-candy pants again. "...more fashionable wardrobe. At least twenty dresses."

Carmine D'Atra is both a person and a place—a fashion designer hailing from Venice who now has an international chain of stores of her name. Kosuke has passed by Tokyo's Carmine D'Atra building exactly twice in all her years. She marveled at the sleek gold and silver of the place, and the spectacular dresses in the windows. She'd never stepped foot inside, however: Carmine D'Atra was always the number-one hit if one searched "most expensive clothing store in Japan" on the Internet.

Kosuke stifles down the slight lightheadedness she feels and unfolds the paper. There are two addresses on it, but while the top one is labeled "Crmn DA," the other says "Ldy Bg."

She doesn't say anything, but apparently, she blinks too many times, because Shigeo sighs. "Every member of the Amida household has a family ring."

He holds his up. It's rather simple, a double band of silver and a clear letter 'A'. Has he always been wearing it? She can't recall.

"You're going to be getting one yourself, for appearance's sake. That's the address for Lady Bug. I don't care what color or gem or anything else you want, just make sure it has an 'A' on it."

Lady Bug, of course, topped the results for "most expensive jewelry store in Japan."

"Give those addresses to your chauffeur. And here."

The last thing he gives her is the most daunting: a plastic card.

"This is yours now. Use it for the tailoring and the ring. After that, I couldn't care less what you do with it," Shigeo sighs as she takes it. "Though obviously I shouldn't be seeing any charges for ten trillion yen."

How bizarre, knowing that such a small piece of plastic contains enough money to buy three Lily Bowls. Kosuke swallows whatever it is building up in her chest and tucks it with the papers. Whatever she uses this card for, she's not going to let herself become a spoiled brat.

Behind Shigeo, she sees a flicker of movement. Minami's head is peeking just past the doorway. Her wide eyes blink owlishly at Shigeo. This is the first time she's seen him: her sister's dad. The king who owned the castle. The man that Kosuke told her to stay far away from if she could. Hitsuji's head peeks out with her, but he seems far less interested.

Just as Minami takes a step forward, her little shoe appearing in the doorway, Shigeo starts to turn.

"Um!"

Minami freezes, but then Shigeo turns back to Kosuke. Quickly, with silent footsteps, she runs for it. She pulls Hitsuji with her by the hand. That's the last Kosuke sees of them before they leave for school.

"What?" Shigeo scoffs.

"I-Is that all?" Kosuke asks, thinking quick. "You don't have anything else that I need to do today?"

"Do you _want_ anything else to do today?"

"I don't know what exactly you have planned for me to do to prepare for—"

"That's all I need you to do today. You don't have classes today, correct?" Kosuke nods. Fridays are the one weekday she doesn't have any classes at Ouran. "Then congratulations. Tokyo is yours to explore."

Even though she'd said it in a moment of panic, Kosuke does wonder if she should be getting thrown into the spotlight more. What about a debutante ball? Is she going to have to do one of those? If Shigeo is merciful, then he'll let her integration into high society be a quiet one.

Shigeo leaves after that. The chefs come to take the dishes away, and Kosuke realizes that she is once again alone, but now she will remain so for most of the day. The mansion suddenly feels daunting. Endless. For these past days, she has stuck to the paths between her bedroom, the children's, and the kitchen. She has no idea what the ballroom looks like even though she passes it every day, and she hasn't even seen a glimpse of the pool area.

Kosuke takes a breath. First things first, she's going to want to get out of these pajamas.

_This is probably for the best_ , she tells herself as she climbs the stairs. _You have a day off. Just try to relax and go through this whole day without worrying about anything._

_Especially_ Kyoya Ootori.

* * *

The chaffeur (who she just likens to a cab driver to make it seem more normal) drops her off on the street of Carmine D'Atra. She thanks him but tells him not to wait for her since she'll be doing some exploring while she's here.

The trip to Carmine D'Atra _mostly_ goes well. Once she's in the store and makes herself known, the fashionable attendees take her to a back room for measurements. If she just spaced out and looked at nothing as the measuring tape was drawn over her body, it would have been completely ordinary.

Unfortunately, D'Atra's designs beg to be looked at, and Kosuke can't help herself. The dresses are absolutely stunning, but she can hear their price tags screaming. If she could, she'd just pretend that they were any other overly expensive thing she wouldn't be buying...but she can't. One of the attendees hands her a tablet with a catalogue of every design they sell. Kosuke immediately filters it by price first, feeling momentary relief—just because she _can_ spend so much money doesn't mean she has to. But then she sees that even the least expensive of all the designs is over 260,000 yen.

So after that, she just picks them almost at random and doesn't look at the price tags. She has to get at least twenty, so by the time she thanks them all for their time and leaves, she has spent over _five. million. yen._ on dresses.

_How do rich people do it?_ She wonders as she walks out into the street, feeling dizzy. _How can they spend so much money like they're tossing coins into a fountain?_

Then she reminds herself to relax and let it be. Just pretend she spent fifty yen maximum atc an old thrift shop.

Her nerves relax as she walks down the Tokyo streets. This will be one of the very few things she'll enjoy out of all of this. She'd always loved Tokyo, but she could count on her fingertips how many times she'd traveled to it—a three hour drive at least to Karuizawa, it was near impossible to just go there and come home in one day. Add that on top of the fact that with a restaurant to run, her parents had very little vacation time.

Now she _lives_ here, and she'll live here probably for the rest of her life, so she can do all the things she's wanted to do all her life, day after day after day. She could go to any and all of the museums and parks, visit the Senso-ji temple, see the cherry blossoms at Nakameguro, walk the winding markets...She may just go to a cat cafe or two just for the heck of it.

Not to mention, walking down the sidewalk, always an arm's length away from someone else, Kosuke finally feels normal again. She's just any other stranger on the street. She isn't special.

This feeling is what urges her to get through her time in Lady Bug as quickly as possible. Not at all helped by the fact that there are _six_ guards just by the front door. She wonders if anyone has ever been stupid enough to try and steal from here.

While her finger goes through metal hoops to find her size, she's almost distracted by the breathtaking gems glittering in the display cases. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, some as small as pinpricks, others as large as golfballs...It seems Japan's treasury is in these glass boxes.

"Now," says the portly man on the other side of the counter. He slides over a book bound in velvet. "Just choose what you would like."

Kosuke returns his kind smile, but her mouth goes dry again when she looks at all her options. This time, she is just going to go with the cheapest options.

Actually, standing there, she feels a memory starting to stir in her mind. She and her mother had been having an ordinary visit to Komoro when Emiko had pulled her into a jewelry store. Not anywhere close to Lady Bug, just a very common chain. Emiko had waved away the attendees and nudged Kosuke to the glass boxes, saying, "See if you like anything."

Kosuke had tried to keep her eyes from boggling out of her skull. “Am I getting something?” The teenage girl half of her was cheering, _Yaaaaay! Pretty jewelry!_ The couch potato half of her was doubting, _I don’t think I have any hoodies that will match any of this._

“Not today,” Emiko had told her. She somehow looked both interested and bored as her stormy blue eyes looked down at all the rings, necklaces, and earrings. She seemed particularly interested-not-interested in a necklace with a teardrop-shaped pendant holding a little emerald at its end. “It’s going to be your graduation present.”

Kosuke had scratched at her cheek, wondering. Earrings would probably be best, she’d figured—wouldn’t get lost in her hoodie, and wouldn’t catch crumbs when she reached into a bag of chips. “Think I should pick a ruby? To match my hair?”

“Your _college_ graduation.” Emiko had clarified, sharply, “I expect you to get rid of that color by the time you’ve got a diploma.”

To be honest? Kosuke didn’t even know if she _liked_ her hair anymore. She couldn’t wear anything red or she’d looked like a bottle of ketchup, and dying it was such a messy process. But spiteful, petty, bratty daughter that she was, she kept it because she knew it got on her mother’s nerves. She’d probably have to give it up anyway—her high school was in the minority of those that let its students dye their hair and Seneca probably wouldn’t be so forgiving—but she’d planned on holding onto it.

Not wanting to snap back in public, Kosuke had asked, “Why jewelry?”

She’d not been expecting Emiko to answer, “It’s what my mother got for me when I graduated.”

Kosuke had pretended to take a harder look at her options. In truth, every single mention of her grandparents always took her aback, because they were few and far between. Almost excited, she’d asked, “Do you still have what she gave you?”

Emiko’s jaw pulled tight. Taking a breath, she’d replied, “I think a sapphire would be better. They’d match your eyes.”

Back in the present, Kosuke looks at the pages without really seeing. She’d never found out the answer to that question or many others. Not to mention her mother would never see her graduate, let alone get her anything to celebrate it, and Kosuke’s hair had stayed that red that she hated.

She suddenly feels a flare of anger at Shigeo, knowing that he’d done _something_ to her mother. Something made her run away from him. And Kosuke was furious with herself with working with him despite the fact.

_You know what?_

_Screw it._

“I think I would like it to be silver,” she tells the man. She points at a picture in the book. “I want this band…”

She doesn’t pick the most expensive options, but she forgets about the money. It’s Shigeo’s money. He hurt her mother somehow and Kosuke refuses to feel even slightly guilty for using his cash for a pretty piece of jewelry. He probably won’t care—probably won’t even notice. It’ll just make Kosuke feel better, knowing that even if she can’t get her mother justice and even if she never finds out what happened, she’ll never have to feel bad for him. Actually, she makes a mental note: when she gets home she’s going to search for some charities to give some monthly donations to.

Kosuke leaves Lady Bug, finally free to do whatever she wants for the rest of the day. Should she stop by some more shops and have a little spending spree with Shigeo’s money? Or should she just wander the streets to sightsee? There have to be a million places to grab food here, maybe she should just get an early lunch.

Once she starts walking, she looks around, enjoying the scenery that will become the norm for her. Colorful strangers pass by on the sidewalks. At times the streets are almost bumper-to-bumper with cars, quite a few of them black taxi cabs. The buildings around her have too many floors to count, and all over there are signs and store names that almost seem to beckon her to go on an adventure. A mother pushes two sleeping twins in a baby stroller. A cluster of teenage boys pass on the other side of the road, pushing each other around and hooting with laughter. A man steps out of a parked car, straightening his jacket.

Kosuke just starts walking.

_It’s good that I wore walking shoes,_ she thinks to herself. _Maybe I’ll just walk until I can’t anymore._

Once she turns a corner, it’s an entirely different scene. At least she won’t get lost here, since no two streets look the same. There’s an almanac set up on the sidewalk, and she walks over to it, hoping to get some sense of where she is and where to go. The sun is glinting on the side closest to her, so she rounds to the other side.

She doesn’t get much. It seems that any way she goes will be just as good as the other. She might even go back—she looks past the almanac and sees a stretch just as colorful and enticing as the one behind her.

While she looks, she sees the man that stepped out of the car, now looking down her street as if he’s looking for something. Kosuke doesn’t think a single thing of it. It’s such an ordinary sight that it leaves her mind as quickly as it comes.

_Lunch probably sounds good right now._ Kosuke feels her stomach rumbling despite having breakfast not long ago. Her appetite is insatiable. _There’s probably a million options to choose from, though…_

Already she sees a restaurant that’s clearly fine dining, a café with a steady stream of customers passing through the doors, and a stand selling cheap but no less mouthwatering noodles. The café has a plastic sign outside the door, beckoning in customers with a cute little cat waving inside. As Kosuke passes it, she sees the reflection of the street behind her…

…and the man.

Who is quite possibly looking at her now.

Kosuke falters in her steps, but keeps on walking as if she was just considering going in the café for a moment. There’s no way she knows the man. If she did, or if she had anything to do with him, he’d have called out to her by now. As is, he’s just following her. Not saying a word. Almost—prowling.

He’s not—he’s not following her. She’s being paranoid.

_You’ve never been in such a big city by yourself before,_ Kosuke tells herself, letting out a shaky breath. _Or, at least, the last time you were, that Blue Suit creep got you. Now you see one person who just so happens to be going the same way as you and you’re convinced you’re being hunted down._

When she comes to the end of the sidewalk, she looks to her right and sees a storefront that juts out just a bit farther into the sidewalk than the others. She can see her own reflection already as far away as she is, so she decides that she’s going to walk past. She’d be walking in a square. The guy isn’t going to follow her, and she knows that, but if she can just see it then maybe her overemotional brain will settle down.

She walks past the window.

The man follows.

_I’m being hunted down._

Kosuke keeps walking because she doesn’t want him to know she’s noticed. She doesn’t know what to do.

She has her cellphone. She could call for help, but he’s _right there._ She could duck into a store or something, but wouldn’t that just be trapping herself? She _can’t_ go anywhere even remotely unpopulated. She needs people around.

Kosuke tries to figure out his intentions as her heart starts to hammer against her sternum. She _wants_ to believe that he’s just trying to return something she’d dropped, but he would have _said_ something—he would be walking faster to catch up with her, not keeping a careful distance.

Is he planning to rob her? Is he going to hurt her? Is he one of those freaks that propositions random girls on the street?

Does he know who she is? Maybe he saw her get out of the limousine. Maybe he saw her go into the most expensive dress store in Japan and then watched as she went to the most expensive _jewelry_ store in Japan. He sees a girl who’s obviously loaded with cash all by herself.

Another thought comes to her, and Kosuke had never known what it meant for blood to run cold.

_What if he works for the loan shark?_

Oh, she’s so stupid, stupid, stupid…

She had the money in an envelope tucked inside one her shoes back at the mansion. She’d taken the money from her account, not Shigeo’s, of course, but she should have sent it _sooner._ She still has time, the week isn’t over, but surely the loan shark knows she’s moved by now. She should have sent the money to make it clear she wasn’t going to stop sending money, that she wasn’t running away. Or maybe, just like she’d feared, now he knows _where_ she lives and he wants a little more honey in the pot.

Kosuke has to do something. People are still passing by. For one second, she almost reaches out to them: an elderly couple, a trio of teenage girls, a man in a suit…She could just tell them, _That man is following me, please help!_ That’s what Marti always told her to do if something like this ever happened. He’d _promised_ someone would help her.

But she stops herself, because she remembers all those stupid, horrible _nightmares_ she had after she came home from the Blue Tower. She went from person to person, begging them to help her, and each and every one of them turned their noses up in disgust at her. They keep walking and wave her away like she’s nothing more than an annoying street salesman.

She knows it’s just nightmares, but now she can’t make herself ask anyone for help. She has to figure out something on her own.

Like a sign from God, she sees a staircase down to the subway up ahead. It looks like dozens of people are going in every second. A perfect opportunity.

She keeps her pace the same as she goes in. Already she feels as packed as a sardine in a can. There’s a stream of people going one way to the other, only stopped by clusters of pedestrians at the ticket booths, looking at the maps…So many people around makes it so much easier to lose him, but so much harder to be fast about it.

Kosuke just lets out a stream of “excuse me” and “pardon me” as she starts running through as quickly as she can. At least she just looks like a regular person trying to catch her train before it’s too late. The other exit feels like it’s a football field away from her. Every time she has to pause, she feels that the man is gaining ten feet on her.

_Finally,_ the sea breaks and she sprints for the stairs, taking two or even three at a time, already out of breath but not stopping for a second.

Finally, once she makes it through, she breaks for the first corner that she sees and ducks behind it. She feels like she’s about to go into cardiac arrest.

But relief floods through her. There’s no way the man caught up to her through that crowd—and even if he’d been close, he wouldn’t be able to see where she went now.

She tries to catch her breath, but it’s hard. Now she has no idea what she’s going to do. She can probably call the police now. She _thinks_ she can provide an accurate enough description of what the guy looked like. She’s going to have to stay put at least for a while, though, just to talk to them.

_So much for not getting lost,_ her half-delirious mind thinks. She has no idea where she is now, even though she couldn’t have gone for. Just up ahead is a public park—she sees green trees paved walkways, but there aren’t very many people at all. She can at least go through real quick as she puts as much distance between her and the guy as possible. For once, she doesn’t see any black cabs—she would gladly hail one down and tell the driver to just floor it.

As she starts walking again, she feels a pain throb in her calf. She must have done something in her sprint. It doesn’t feel broken or twisted, but the idea of running again already has regret filling her.

Once she’s in the park, among the trees and the grass, she sucks in another gulp of air and turns around one more time just to assure herself that he’s gone.

He’s still there.

Kosuke turns back around without missing a beat, even though she feels like her heart just dropped to the ground. For one split second, another pump of adrenaline shoots to her legs, but just as quickly the pain flares again. She can’t run anymore. And she just waltzed right into an area where not many people are around.

She’s going to have to ask someone for help. She’s out of options. She can only pray that they will. But now she sees no one. She’s in the middle of Tokyo, and there’s no one.

Actually, no, there’s someone. A sweet little old lady at a little shopping stand.

Kosuke just about screams in frustration, because there’s no way in hell she’s going to put a nice little grandmother in between her and a possible hitman, but then she sees what the woman is selling.

She gets one last sprint forward, her leg screaming all the while. The trees are just thick enough. She may have a few precious seconds.

“Hello, ma’am.” Kosuke gives a bow as quickly as she can, probably looking like she’s diving for the ground. “I would like your heaviest one, please.”

“Certainly.” The woman extends a long, thick walking stick made out of a glossy dark wood to her. “That’ll be forty-one hundred, please.”

Kosuke dives into her back pocket, grabs the biggest notes she sees, and almost throws them at the woman. “Thank you so much!”

“Oh, no!” The woman frets as Kosuke is turning around. “This is more than twice what I need, dear!”

“No, no, keep the change. Thank you!”

Then she darts a way forward, gritting her teeth as the pain flares, and ducks behind the trunk of a tree big enough to conceal her. Then she holds her breath, gripping the walking stick to her chest, and looks out.

It takes a second for the man to appear, not quite running, but just about. He’s older than Kosuke thought he was. At least in his sixties. He almost looks like an innocent older gentleman, but Kosuke isn’t so easily convinced. Just because the loan shark looked like a cartoon stereotype didn’t mean they all would be.

As expected, he turns down the way she came, and she ducks back until she can just barely see him. He goes to the sweet old woman and asks, “Excuse me, but did a young blonde woman just pass by?”

“Yes, sir, she went down that way.”

Now Kosuke pulls back and just listens to the footsteps. She is not going to feel bad about this. She’ll deal with the fallout later; right now she has to protect herself.

“Hey!”

Kosuke keeps the walking stick behind the tree but jumps out. The man instantly pulls up short with an exclamation. Ugh, he looks so unassuming. How did he keep up with her?

Keeping her voice steely, she grits out, “Can I help you with something.”

The man composes himself, running a hand down his chest and swallowing hard. Kosuke keeps an eye on that hand.

“Would your name happen to be Kosuke Nakahara?”

She glares at him. If there is _one thing_ she actually wants to inherit from Shigeo, it’s the ability to turn her eyes into ice. “Why are you asking.”

The man swallows again and reaches into his jacket pocket.

Kosuke starts swinging.

He lets out another yell as he scrambles backwards. _Good._ Kosuke may look like a maniac, but she doesn’t care. She swings the walking stick so hard that she hears it whistling through the air. She can almost feel the jolt that would run up her arms if she struck him.

For now, she keeps him at a distance. He’s moved back, which is good for him, but if he tries to come closer again then Kosuke isn’t holding back anymore.

“Whoa, whoa, _whoa!”_ Kosuke bats one more hard swing. The man looks properly scared. It only makes her grip the walking stick a little tighter. “Please, calm down!”

“What do you want?!” she barks at him. “Why are you following me?!”

“Please, I don’t mean you any harm—”

_“Just tell me!”_

His jaw audibly snaps shut. Shakily, he reaches for his jacket pocket again, but stops cold when Kosuke lifts her walking stick a few inches. Then he delicately pinches his lapel between his finger and slowly peels it back so she can see the lining—at the very least, there’s no way he’s keeping a weapon in there. That doesn’t mean she drops her weapon as he just as slowly reaches for his pocket.

He pulls out a square, folded piece of paper and extends it out to her.

Kosuke blinks a few times, which she isn’t proud to admit, but she still doesn’t back down. For all she knows, it’s a note from the loan shark telling her to cough up more money. Or it’s a threat for “backing out” of their deal.

She is not going to be taken by surprise.

“Put it down and step back.”

Half-scared and half-gobsmacked, the man carefully kneels down and places the paper down on the walking path. Then he takes a step back, but Kosuke extends the walking stick out to keep him going. Only when she has all five feet between them does she pick the paper up, and gives him her best _don’t try anything_ glare as she looks at it.

It’s a photograph, not a note, and what it’s a photograph of confuses her immensely. Not enough to drop the stick, but enough to have her head snaking back a bit.

It’s just a family. Like—an everyday common family you could find a million of in Tokyo alone. A man, his wife, and their daughter. Actually, looking closer, Kosuke sees that it’s _the_ man—probably over twenty years younger, his hair thicker and skin not nearly as wrinkled. The man standing in front of her has green eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses and a beard of gray scruff. The man in the photograph’s hair is a very light blond, and he’s clean-shaven. He only has crow’s feet.

_Why in the hell is he showing me a picture of his family?_ Kosuke looks back up at him, but he’s just watching her. _And why such an old photo? What does he—_

Her blood runs cold. Again.

_Oh._

_No._

_Is his family being held hostage?_

_IS THE LOAN SHARK HOLDING HIS FAMILY HOSTAGE BECAUSE HE THINKS I BACKED OUT?_

Kosuke thinks she’s about to scream, but she keeps looking at the photograph. The woman—his wife, his poor wife!—is smiling as she loops an arm around her husband’s middle. At least back then, her hair is long and straight, a lovely honey brown. Kosuke can’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but her smile is bright and pure.

Their daughter—who is certainly not as young anymore, at least forty, but maybe he brought a photo of her as a young woman to emphasize that she’s just an innocent life that doesn’t deserve to be taken—stands between them. She looks like a fairytale princess in the modern day. Her pale blonde hair goes all the way down to her hips, and it looks soft even on paper. She’s slender with a warm smile, and her eyes…

Kosuke brings the photograph closer.

Those eyes.

Wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

Kosuke stares at the man’s daughter. In her mind, she cuts her hair short. She turns the smile into a frown. She gives the stormy blue eyes just a hint of crow’s feet at their corners.

.

.

.

.

It’s Emiko.

It’s her mother.

It can’t be anyone else.

_Now_ Kosuke drops the walking stick.

This is the only photograph of her mother this young that she’s ever seen. She can’t be much older than Kosuke herself in this picture. All her life growing up, Emiko had never said why she didn’t have any pictures before she had Kosuke, and Kosuke had just chalked it up to yet another detail about her unknown but unhappy life. And she’s been given this picture by a stranger.

Well, no.

Well. No to that no.

She doesn’t know him. Looking back at him, watching as his lips purse together, Kosuke sees the similarities—the shape of the eyes, the structure of his face—but it’s still a stranger’s face.

But it’s her grandfather’s face.

What…

What does she do?

What does she _say?_

He stares at her and she stares back. She’s staring at him and she sees her mother, and she wonders if he’s seeing the same thing.

She’s staring at this face that’s absolutely alien to her, but is of her own blood.

He is one of the very few people who knew the version of her mother that she never even got a glimpse of. Who could hold the answers to so many of her questions. She’s imagined what he looked like a million times over, but now that he’s real, she’s frozen.

“I.” Kosuke swallows. Her throat feels like it’s lined in sandpaper. “I’m Kosuke, yes.”

“Oh.” He breathes. She can see how hard and slow he’s breathing, and she doesn’t think it’s just from pursuing her through the Tokyo streets. “Oh, good. That’s good. I…” He straightens his horn-rimmed glasses. “I didn’t mean to scare you; I’m so sorry. I—I can only imagine how menacing I looked just now, chasing you down…”

“Um.” Should she say that it’s okay? _Is it_ okay? “Why did you…?”

“Well,” he breathes again. “I’ll absolutely tell you, but…Do you think we could sit down and talk? I don’t think this will be a short conversation.” He presses a hand to his chest. “And to be frank, that run has winded me a bit…”

_Now_ regret fills Kosuke. Not for making him run after her—she didn’t—but she did just swing a five-foot walking stick at him hard enough to splinter his bones like toothpicks.

Is this happening? Everything that has happened lately, and now this, too?

She holds the walking stick to herself, but now to keep it as far away from him as possible. She wants to slap herself for almost braining her own grandfather.

“Sure. We can sit down.” Kosuke realizes she’s still holding the photograph. She wants to keep it…but it’s not hers to keep. “Here.”

Kosuke takes a step forward—

“Excuse me, dear.”

Both of them turn around at the sound of the small voice. Kosuke jumps a foot into the air because _oh dear god the old woman is double-wielding walking sticks at her grandfather._

“Is this man bothering you, sweetheart?” The woman has to be _half_ her height, and she looks as cuddly as a teddy bear, but now Kosuke is convinced that she is _fully capable_ of _obliterating_ her grandfather with her two walking sticks. “Just say the word!”

Kosuke and her grandfather become a chorus singing, “No, no, no, no, no!” Kosuke is able to convince her that it was just a horrible misunderstanding, though it isn’t easy. The old lady finally shuffles back to her stand after five minutes of explanation, and not without giving her grandfather a withering glare. Kosuke doesn’t know whether she should feel guiltier about almost getting him clobbered or almost being the one to _do_ the clobbering.

He looks properly frazzled now. This is…certainly not how _Kosuke_ imagined her first meeting with her grandfather happening, if it ever would.

“Let’s go sit,” she tells him again.

He nods, shaking. “Yes, that sounds good.”

* * *

Her grandfather’s name is Sugimoto.

That is the extent of her knowledge so far.

“Obviously I want to apologize for following you like I did,” Sugimoto says, sitting beside her on the park bench. “That’s the exact reason I don’t like my wife walking alone at night.” Quickly, he adds, “My wife’s name is Airi, by the way.”

Kosuke nods. She doesn’t know what else to do.

Sugimoto shifts uncomfortably on the bench. Kosuke feels guiltier by the second—he really does just look like an innocent old man. He looks like he should be holding the walking stick, not her.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” he admits. “Why don’t you just ask whatever you want and I’ll answer?”

This almost reminds her of meeting Shigeo all over again. She’s been found because of who her mother was, and now they’re just sitting and talking. Thankfully she does not feel afraid this time. Of course, there’s no telling just yet what Sugimoto’s story is. He could very well be just as guilty for driving Emiko away as Shigeo, but at least he doesn’t have an ice cold attitude.

Where to begin, though?

“Alright.” Kosuke pauses. “Why haven’t I met you before?”

Sugimoto’s lips press together. He looks away from her just a moment, into the leaves of the park trees that rustle in the breeze. His own eyes aren’t much darker. Why couldn’t she have inherited his eyes? Why did she have to get Shigeo’s?

“I…wish you’d ask me anything _besides_ that.”

Quicker than even she’s ready for, Kosuke snaps, _“Why.”_ Because seriously, _why._ Why does she keep getting so close to getting her answers only to come short because those holding them won’t give them?

“It’s…” Sugimoto’s jaw works for a second. “It’s a conversation to have with Airi. Not just us.”

Even though the anger’s still rippling under her skin, Kosuke has to admit that’s at least an acceptable reason. Much better than simply, “Because I don’t want to.” She’s waited almost twenty years, she can wait a little while longer.

“Okay…Why am I meeting you _now?_ ”

Sugimoto takes a deep breath like he was expecting this but still not prepared.

“When your mother… _left,_ she made it clear that she wasn’t coming back and she didn’t want us following. For almost twenty years, we didn’t hear a word from or about her—where she went, what she was doing…It wasn’t until we heard that Shigeo had brought his daughter to his home that we even knew you existed. We couldn’t find any way to contact you, and…Well, we’re not on friendly terms with Shigeo, to say the least. It wouldn’t have been wise to just show up at any of his estates, announced or otherwise. I know this is going to sound alarming, but I promise you that our intentions were not to violate your or your siblings’ privacy…We hired a private investigator.” Kosuke startles, because _what,_ and he quickly adds, “Again, I promise, _not_ to violate your privacy. At first we only hired him to confirm you were with Shigeo. After that, we just needed the opportunity to speak to you. I could have come to Ouran University, but I didn’t want to interrupt your classes, or have you surrounded with an audience. Once the PI realized you were going into town today, he drove me here to speak to you myself.”

Well…Kosuke doesn’t know what to make of that. The idea of being stalked—sorry, _privately investigated—_ makes her uneasy, but if all they know is where she lives and goes to school, then that isn’t much. If things are as bad with Shigeo as Sugimoto makes them sound, then yes, confronting her himself was probably impossible. The estate was locked up tighter than a bank vault.

“Why didn’t you call out, or something? You could have just said, ‘Excuse me!’ instead of chasing me through the streets.”

He coughs. Rightfully embarrassed. “You’re right. I was just so shocked, I guessed. I knew it was you, but it seemed to good to be true.”

Kosuke doesn’t really focus on that point. She’s already zeroing in on what she’s just realized. Too hopeful for her own good, Kosuke blurts out, “What happened with Shigeo?”

“That…has to do with what we need to talk with Airi for.”

_So leaving her mom and dad and divorcing Shigeo are tied together?_

Now Kosuke’s starting to second-guess herself. Innocent he may look, but innocent he is not. Does he realize that he’s not helping his case, being so ambiguous? Or maybe he’s acknowledging that he’s guilty to some degree?

Kosuke can’t help but let out a frustrated sigh, and Sugimoto only frowns deeper. He doesn’t plead, though, at least being able to tell how she’s feeling right now.

“So why _are_ you here now?”

“For two reasons. Firstly, I need to warn you…”

Sugimoto turns in his seat to face her. His green eyes have gone steely.

“I don’t know what Shigeo has told you. I don’t know if he said he sought you out with good intentions, or if he convinced you with something else, but whatever it was…I _strongly_ advise you to be careful around him. If you can, I’ll even tell you to stay away from him. I know the heirdom a-and the wealth and everything, it may seem appealing, but it isn’t worth it.”

Not that it’s anything new, but Kosuke’s jaw goes tight. It’s one thing to know Shigeo is bad news and another to hear someone else confirm it.

“Why? Why do I need to stay away from him?”

“He’s…” Sugimoto runs a hand through his thin hair. “He’s a very selfish man, Kosuke. He’s going to put his own interests first, every time. And I’m sorry, but I feel quite positive that he _will_ hurt you.”

_Still not breaking news._ “ _How_ is he selfish, though? How do you know?”

Sugimoto looks off to the side. He looks incredibly frustrated, and it annoys Kosuke because she feels she has more right to be. “It…It has to do with why your mother left, why she left _him…_ Just…Until Airi’s here…”

Kosuke looks off into the trees. She thinks if she looks at him much longer she’s going to snap, even though she’s trying to give him a fair chance. “It’s hard to hear you out when you’re not backing yourself up.”

“I know, I know, just—Why are you with him right now?”

Kosuke decides not to answer that, because his voice is taking on a very “barter-y” tone. “Why?”

“If it’s because you wanted a relationship with your father…Well, I can’t hold that against you. I can’t support it, but as you said, I can’t defend my claim just yet. But if it was the heirdom of his company, all the money, we—Airi and I—we could give that to you. If that’s the only reason you’re with him, we can give you that, too. Perhaps not as much, but…”

She should probably be jumping on this offer, but she isn’t. Kosuke likes gum on the bottom of her shoe better than Shigeo right now. She trusts him as far as she can trust him. And she knows next to nothing about him, but still, _next to_ nothing. As opposed to just nothing, which is what she knows about Sugimoto and Airi.

“I’m trying to hear you out,” she says evenly. “But I don’t know you. You may know Shigeo better than I do, but you’re a stranger to me.”

He frowns deeper, distressed. “But—How well did you know him before you agreed to live with him?”

_As well as I know you, and it cost me a lot._ “I’m going to have to turn down your offer. At least for now, at least until I know you better.”

He sighs again, but leaves it at that. Then, a moment later, he asks, “I don’t know exactly when he came to you, but it seems very recent. And—I’ve heard of your engagement to Kyoya Ootori, and I’m just wondering how soon you agreed to that after you agreed to live with him?”

The name alone dampens her mood tenfold. She didn’t see this conversation coming, but she’s not going to let it take this turn of subject. “I don’t see how that matters.”

“I—Could you at least tell me, was this engagement a _condition_ of any sort—”

“I’m looking forward to marrying Kyoya Ootori,” she lies quickly. There’s a chance all this questioning is just coming from a concerned grandfather, but it seems more likely that he’s trying to scope out the enemy. Which, Shigeo _is,_ but she has yet to find proof that Sugimoto is much better. “And I’m sorry, but I thought I was supposed to be asking questions.”

Sugimoto’s mouth closes with an audible click of teeth. He looks properly scolded, and a bit frightened. He’s surely disappointed that this is turning out the way that it is, but he probably had too optimistic an outlook.

Kosuke asks, “What was the second reason you wanted to talk to me?”

He blinks, surprised that she’s asking even though he was the one who said as much. “You’re…my granddaughter. I wanted to meet you.”

It could be a lie. But Kosuke _wants_ it to be true despite herself. Her only family right now are two young children, lovable but naïve, and a sour bastard who treats her like a bartering chip. Not too long, and it’ll be _another_ sour bastard and all the unfamiliar members of his clan. There’s no one who can actually help her, let alone she can really _talk to._

It’s so frustrating that this can’t be one of those feel-good movie moments where she gets caught up with her long-lost grandfather and reforms a broken family. This one little flicker of hope could be based on a lie of yet another manipulator seeing an opportunity.

Sugimoto is watching her—her silence implying rejection. Kosuke wishes he weren’t so surprised. He doesn’t have the right to be.

“I—” Kosuke rubs at the back of her neck. “I’m not saying _no,_ but you have to understand that with how little you’re actually telling me, I’m not too keen on jumping right into this.”

“Like I said, if Airi were here—”

“I know. But for _now,_ all I know is that you’re my grandfather.”

He jerks his head in a nod. At least now he’s getting it.

“I don’t expect it to completely change your mind, but would it help if I told you a bit about myself? About us?”

_I may not walk away from this with no answers, after all._ “It would.”

His lips quiver like he wants to smile, but he doesn’t.

“Good. Alright, well…We live here in Tokyo, too. Not horribly far from where we are now. Airi is away on business at the moment. We own a line of pharmacies here in Japan…Have you ever heard of Futunari Pharmacy?” Kosuke shrugs. “Well, we’re not world-renowned, but it’s a good business. Successful. I’m sixty-seven years old, Airi is sixty-five. We—we used to live in Nemuro, but we moved here some years ago. It’s…Well, it’s just us. Airi and I. Oh, and we have a Shiba Inu named Ringo. Airi and I will have been married forty-two years just two months from now.”

Kosuke nods along. On the surface, it all sounds completely normal. They just sound like any other long-married couple, but Kosuke knows it isn’t true. It’s like he’s trying to make them sound so typical.

Sugimoto sits there for a moment, and then his mouth opens and closes several times. “Could you…tell me some about yourself? Your family?”

She gives him a sideways glance. She _wants_ to think he’s just an innocent grandfather desperate to reconnect with a broken family. Despite all her wariness, she feels horrible at the idea of just sitting here and not telling him a single thing.

_Don’t overthink it,_ she tells herself. _It’s not like you’re giving him your Individual Number. Just give him basic facts._

“I’m nineteen. My birthday is October 17th. I have two siblings—half-siblings, I mean, Mom remarried when I was six.” Sugimoto nods, already knowing that. “My sister’s name is Minami and my brother’s name is Hitsuji. They’re eight and five—their birthdays are January 8th and September 12th. I’m…going to Ouran University right now. The kids are going to Ouran, too.”

Sugimoto nods to every word she says. He is starting to smile, but his eyes are heartbroken. Kosuke can feel the sympathy swelling and tries to keep it down. This could be an act, but _god,_ he’s too good at it.

When she finishes, he asks, “What…What was your life growing up? What—What did Emiko do? Did she have a job?”

Kosuke opens her mouth, but closes it just as quickly. She doesn’t want to see his heart break in front of her any more, but this is not…fair. Shigeo didn’t care, but Sugimoto does. He’s hiding things about her mother and events Kosuke was never around to witness—yet now he asks Kosuke for everything. That’s not a fair trade. That’s not _a_ trade.

“Why…” Kosuke swallows. “Why don’t we wait until Airi comes? I can tell you then.”

Does she say it to be petty, or because she doesn’t know what else to do? She doesn’t even know, but she says it, it’s out there, and she doesn’t take it back. This is not a fairytale. They do not hug and kiss and cry. They sit three feet across from each other on a park bench, barely looking at each other, voices tense and clipped.

Sugimoto’s lips seal together. He doesn’t nod, he just pulls back and sits upright. He’s not going to argue about it, which is good. It’s not quite anger that Kosuke’s feeling towards him—there’s no heat in her. Yet she can’t help but feel that if he raises his voice at her, she’ll just leave. She may regret it later, but she’s done doing this, arguing with stranger men about what she will and will not do.

“I meant what I offered before,” Sugimoto says. He’s looking down at his polished shoes. “I just ask that you remember that.”

Kosuke nods. For now, she feels no different. But later, she wonders if she’ll think it over again. “I will.”

“Also…”

Sugimoto digs into one pocket, then the other, then finally reaches into his breast pocket to find his prize: it’s another piece of paper, this time with a series of digits written across.

“I want you to take this. Feel free to contact me whenever you want.”

Kosuke takes it. She doesn’t feel conflicted about doing so. For as many walls that have come up, she knows that she can’t cut him off entirely. This is an opportunity to learn what happened to her mother, and she can’t give it up. He sighs in relief as she takes it. She wishes he’d stop.

Sugimoto hesitates. The relief in his eyes snuffs out into something grim. “Just know that, if you _do_ decide to contact me…And if you were to accept my trying to contact you…” She nods. “We should be careful about it. I don’t know how Shigeo would react. Here, here.”

He digs into his pocket again and pulls out a blocky little flip-phone. Horribly outdated, but brand new, not a scratch on it. He presses this into her hand as well. “I don’t know if he’s paying for your phone or not, but if he is, then he’ll be able to see who you’re calling. Use this one instead—hide it.”

“Okay,” Kosuke says, but she feels the uncomfortable pang of danger. She doesn’t know where Shigeo has drawn the line—what she can get away with before he cuts all ties with her and throws her to the side. She has seen a glimpse of his anger before. She does not know how he’ll react if he finds out she’s been meeting with the parents of the woman she is not allowed to talk about. “Okay.”

“Don’t tell him that we talked. Don’t even imply it.”

Sugimoto looks at his wristwatch and suddenly stands. Kosuke follows. The loan shark, the Suits, her father, her fiancé—another bizarre first meeting to add to the list. It’s really starting to feel like the cosmos have made her life a Shakespearean play, her troubles and follies just so amusing to watch.

_How much more of this can I take?_ She wonders.

Kosuke tucks away the phone and the paper, but Sugimoto hesitates, and once more he reaches into his pocket.

“Why don’t you have this, too?”

It is the photograph of him, Airi, and Emiko. The one kind of photograph that never once hung on the walls of their home. Kosuke’s fingers hesitate to take it. Sugimoto extends it further, beckoning. So she claims it. She now has three objects—no, four, the money—to hide in the mansion like her life depends on it.

“I’m afraid I have to go now,” Sugimoto says. “Just remember everything I said—contact me anytime.”

Kosuke nods—she feels like a bobblehead, doing it so many times. She looks behind her, sees the walking stick. It’ll be quite an odd souvenir to explain. “I’m sorry that we met like this. I thought—”

Thankfully Sugimoto interrupts her before she goes on. What was she going to do, explain how she’s dealing with a loan shark and she thought he was one of his hitmen? “No, no, it was my fault entirely. I’m…I’m sorry that we could only meet now, and not sooner.”

Kosuke hums in agreement, but she marks it up as another point to be wary. He knows that they’ve only met now because something happened to make Emiko run. But whether he’s acknowledging his part or just stating simple facts, she can’t tell.

“It was…nice meeting you, Sugimoto.”

He presses his lips again. Is he disappointed she is not calling him Grandfather? He has no right to be.

“You, too, Kosuke. I hope to hear from you soon.”

He bows to her, and she bows to him. As he walks away, Kosuke pretends to be gathering her things, but really she keeps an eye on him as he descends down the grass-lined pavement. Only when he’s out of sight does she feel like she can breathe again.

When should she call him? Or perhaps she should wait until he seeks her out, instead? Sometimes Kosuke feels as though she’s playing a game of chess, other times hide-and-seek. Knowing herself, she’s going to make a stupid mistake. She’ll pick up a call from Sugimoto right in front of company, or she’ll leave an envelope for the loan shark right out where anyone can grab it.

The worst thing is, she’s so positive that if she hadn’t met Shigeo the way that she had—man, if she hadn’t met him _at all_ —then this could’ve just been a very normal meeting with the grandfather she never knew. Maybe they would’ve spent their time together happily chatting away about their lives. Or perhaps not…if she’s lucky, then her experience with Shigeo will prepare her for what might come. Maybe she’ll spot some red flags and cut ties with her grandparents before she’s in too deep.

Or maybe she’ll act like some kind of undercover spy and simply pretend to go along with it all until she gets the answers she wants. Thing is, whether this is chess or hide-and-seek, Kosuke’s never been a good player of either.

Her phone, the one she already had before she came here, buzzes in her pocket.

From: Tamaki

_Hi!!!! I really hope you’re doing well, it’s been forever since we’ve talked! We need to hang out AS SOON AS POSSIBLE._

_Now that you’re settled, there’s so many things we need to do! We should all go on a group date, of course! We could go to the movies, or the park, anything! Just let me know what you want to do!_

Wow.

Her one day off really has just been one stressful thing after another.


	20. Charades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyoya realizes that he's made some miscalculations in his and Kosuke's act.

Thus far, no one else knows.

It is an inevitability. As of now, they are in the same eye of the hurricane that they'd been in when DomenMed had left Ootori Medical but it was not made public yet. It is quiet and tense. The air has an electric current.

The sad thing—and Kyoya thinks his mother knows it—is that in the grand scheme of things…it will not matter much.

It will only make ripples, not shockwaves. Jin and Yoshio Ootori's marriage was another example of an arranged marriage _not_ between two leaders: Kyoya regrets saying something so blatantly untrue. Jin's father, Hiro Hobayashi, had been the right-hand man of Kazushi Ootori, Yoshio's father. The Hobayashi family's fortune and standing came solely from their ties to the Ootori family. They were the fruit that had come from the tree.

The friendship between the patriarchs of the Ootori and Hobayashi families had gone back two generations prior, but it was Hiro and Kazushi who had seen it all too fitting to have their children married. It perhaps wasn't the wisest "business" decision in that it didn't make any connection with another profitable family. Kyoya remembers when he was younger, Yoshio's voice would turn disagreeable when he explained this part of the story—no matter how much he loved his wife, he _still_ had to criticize his marriage based on merit alone. Even Kyoya himself couldn't help but question such a move sometimes, with the one-track mind that he had, but he couldn't criticize his grandfathers too much. He remembered them both fondly.

The Hobayashis still exist. Every now and then, Kyoya catches glimpses of some distant cousins here and there. But Hiro had died many years ago with no other children besides his daughter. While the other Hobayashi fathers had passed their positions in the Ootori empire down to their children, Hiro hadn't done so with Jin. She had been free to do whatever she wanted with her life, and so she had chosen the path of the socialite mother and wife who kept up with everything there was to know about everyone, all while keeping their relations warm and friendly.

Point being, people will talk about this, but it will not be hissed whispers and exclamations fretting for the future of Ootori Medical now that its king and queen are no longer ruling together. More likely this will just be something muttered behind hands, gossiped over coffee. People will care, but it will not matter. It will be entertaining.

If his mother wants just a bit more time _not_ being the subject of coffee gossip, then Kyoya can't fault her for that. He can fault her for many other things, but not that.

She had explained everything to them all while she was still hungover in the guest bed. That she was still going to "partner" with Yoshio. They were still in the same family, and she was going to keep doing her job of socialite to keep said family's image good. But soon they will legally be divorced. Things could very well change in the future, but for now their finances will stay as-is—she didn't want any property form Ootori Medical, but she and Yoshio had both agreed that it would look rather cruel if he just gave her a cut of money and tossed her to the streets.

Really, it doesn't seem like much will change at all. At most, they will no longer live in the same estate. They will still attend galas and other events as a pair to show that just because they are divorced, it does not mean that their family unit has fallen to pieces.

Now, as for _why_ they were divorcing:

"Let him explain," Jin had sniffed.

At the time, Kyoya had had to stifle down the urge to snap his teeth at her. In her eyes, she was trying to keep her pride in this situation—she was refusing to be the heartbroken wife tossed aside by her unloving husband. In his eyes, though, she was, and still is, just making some kind of power play and using them as a part of it. She knows that this is shocking and confusing for their children, so of course she's going to put it on Yoshio to explain all the bitter details.

They had tried to ask for more, but Jin was adamant. She would not explain a single word about this divorce until her husband said something first. Kyoya is at least happy that this is happening when they are all adults and not children. He may have always been smart for his age, but even a young boy would carry some scars from his mother so blatantly declaring that his father is the bad guy, _he's_ why their family is falling apart!

Everyone reacted differently.

Yuuichi had hung up very shortly after. Thus far, Kyoya hasn't heard a word from him. There's no telling just what he feels. Maybe he doesn't feel anything at all.

Akito had seemed unable to accept it. He kept asking question after question, sometimes repeating himself, like he was trying to figure out why the sky had turned red and the grass had become purple.

Fuyumi just seemed to be in shock. She hadn't said a word, hadn't protested. She had just stared at their mother with wide eyes as she "explained." She soaked in every word and gave none of her own.

Kyoya honestly doesn't know every single thing he's feeling, but mostly it is something akin to apathy—which ironically concerns him.

He'd never expected his parents to divorce, largely for the reasons Jin explained. It would be so troublesome. There'd be so much to figure out. It would sound awful to say, but in those times when Kyoya even humored the idea, he found his mother an example of why everyone should be raised to be a hard worker, rich or poor. When you teach your child that all they have to do is marry someone rich, what happens when their spouse dies, or they divorce? Do they just marry rich again? But of course, divorce in their world is not a common thing.

Thus he also felt for a while now that if they were _not_ Ootoris, but just any other random family in Japan, then they would already be apart.

In all honesty, Kyoya could not remember the last time he'd seen true, warm love between his parents. At their best they were civil and polite, but nowadays it seemed that they just couldn't part from a single meeting with each other without making jabs. Their dialogues consisted of snipped criticisms spoken under their breaths. They walked away from each other exhausted.

It wasn't _always_ like this, though. Kyoya can still very well remember a time when Jin and Yoshio Ootori loved each other. Warm smiles, lingering touches, meeting eyes across the room. Smiling just because they saw each other. Jin would make Yoshio's coffee in the mornings because she was the only one who knew exactly how he liked it. Yoshio would bring her a new piece of jewelry from every venture that separated them, and would painstakingly go through her collection to make sure he didn't repeat himself. If anyone fawned over it, Jin's first proclamation would not be who made it or where the gems were cultivated, but that her husband had gifted it to her.

He just can't remember when that all stopped. Of course, they weren't always _perfect_. Even the happiest married couples had their spats here and there. Kyoya simply can't place when "here and there" became "always."

For now, Kyoya is sitting in the cafe at Ouran University. This is one of the few places where he drinks coffee for both taste and effect. It's a nice place to relax, and—as several students are doing at the polished oak tables, with their laptops open and textbooks stacked precariously—study. The air carries the fine, rich aroma of freshly ground coffee. It has the silence of the library, no sound but the pitter patter of feet and hissing of steam.

He'd ventured here to see if it would take his mind off things, or at least let him focus. The whole look and ambiance of the place could relax someone right to sleep. It already has for some. Apparently, even Ouran is not immune to students falling asleep at café chairs, swaddled in their sweatshirts. Kyoya has his laptop open and his fountain pen in hand, ready to work, but his mind keeps drifting back to his family.

Kyoya has yet to see his father, yet to ask him about this new change in their family. He does not feel encouraged to do so. In the worst case scenario, Yoshio will be angered—perhaps not at him, but he'll be there, _something_ to lash at. Even in better outcomes, Kyoya sees himself being dismissed. Ignored. He can't force his father to explain what's happening, and Yoshio knows that.

Past that, it's hard to tell what the future will be like from here on out. He imagines it won't change in structure, but nothing will be the same anymore. He's going to have to mind himself of bringing up Jin or Yoshio in the other's presence. Whatever Jin decides to do now as an unmarried woman, he'll have to stay updated. Are their already far-and-few-between reunions as a family going to become even farther and fewer?

He also feels some more weight on his shoulders. DomenMed leaving and the Ootori heads divorcing in all such a short amount of time is the flare from a sinking ship. People are going to start asking questions and he can't even hestitate to answer. They will look at the Ootori family and question if they should associate with a group so obviously falling apart at the seams.

Which makes him think—bitterly, as he takes a sip of extra-espresso so hot his lips scream in protest—that he will have to tell Kosuke this soon. There are others that he should tell, too. Tamaki is certainly near the top of the list, considering how he reacted to the news of Kyoya's engagement. Kosuke, though, she takes more priority than his best friend of several years.

She may not think their public image is so important, but Kyoya is now afraid that she's going to take the ball she's already fumbling with and drop it entirely. If someone asks her why her in-laws are divorcing—they shouldn't, given how forward that would be, but they will—then she can't just stutter out that she doesn't know. Heaven forbid she exclaim, "They're divorcing?!" She'll at least have to politely explain that it's personal and she doesn't feel that it's right to explain for them.

Even more important, if she doesn't improve her knowledge soon, then every student in Ouran and their grandmother will know she has no place as the head of Amida Health. So that will be the Ootori heads divorcing, DomenMed leaving, a rushed arranged marriage, and a rushed arranged marriage to the _least_ qualified woman possible.

Needless to say, Kyoya has a lot to be thinking about right now. A headache is already itching at his temples.

 _Not to mention Tamaki is begging for a double date soon_ , he thinks. _I have to still be mindful of my social life._

"Hey, Kyoya!"

_That wasn't an invitation._

Nico Furukawa and Lin Oshido come to his table with ear-to-ear smiles. Nico is the second son of the Furukawa textile empire. He is extraordinarily ordinary. Lin's family history is honestly so complicated that even Kyoya cannot remember every detail, but by virtue of several aunts, uncles, and a few "times removed," he is somehow related to royalty. It's fortunate that it's complicated: there is virtually no chance of Lin ever ruling.

"It's been a while," Nico greets as they approach. He has a bit of stubble on his chin, and it's hard to tell if it's deliberate or forgotten. "Been busy, haven't ya? Not enough time for your old friends?"

Kyoya puts on a welcoming smile. "I'm afraid I have been. I hope my absence hasn't hurt you _too_ badly."

In truth, Nico and Lin and Kyoya are certainly not _friends_ , and Kyoya has no intention of changing that. In all their years attending Ouran together, Kyoya could count on his fingertips how many times they've talked. Nico is a perfectly fine gentleman, if not overly presumptuous about who is his "friend" or not, but Lin is older than Kyoya and he's the epitome of what every parent fears will happen to their son when he goes to college—except he's been that way since he was twelve years old. He prefers the company of hard drinks at loud parties. Not to mention being "friends" with him could lead to tension, as not too many years ago he caused quite a stir when he was attending the party of a fellow classmate of theirs and was caught with her older sister in a broom closet. Kyoya doesn't know how that turned out—he's stayed far away from it.

"So what's keeping you busier?" asks Lin. He's wearing sunglasses even though they're indoors. He lowers them a bit to wink at Kyoya over the lenses, which Kyoya thinks is the only reason why he's wearing them. "Your company or your girl?"

"Kosuke hasn't caused me any grief, I assure you." Kyoya needs to stop this conversation right here and now. Forget Kosuke herself—any conversation with Lin Ochido about women will quickly devolve into something that would make a lady clutch her pearls. "I'm simply keeping up my former responsibilities."

"Hey, remember to keep some time for her, alright?" Nico advises him. "Yui had to make me a schedule just to make sure I didn't spend all day doing work."

Kyoya nods kindly, though he knows that it's probably not 'work' that keeps Nico away from his fiancée. It was a well-known secret that when he wasn't out mingling with friends, Nico was a video game addict, not unlike a certain French student who'd arrived at Ouran during high school. Kyoya didn't want to get too involved with Nico's relationship, but if the rumor mill was to be believed, he and Yui had almost called off the engagement when she found out his video games were of the...not child-friendly kind.

"Hey, listen, Kyo, can you do me a favor?" Kyoya bites his tongue. _No one_ calls him 'Kyo,' least of all Lin. "My sister invited Kosuke to her birthday party next week, but she hasn't said anything back."

 _Don't hold that against her too much,_ Kyoya tells himself before he can feel any annoyance. _You know from experience how many parties, galas, and other events you have to attend to survive in this world. It's hard to keep up with them all._ "I'll ask her about it the next time I see her."

"Great. Also, my sister wants to do this thing where she gives all the girls some diamond earrings with their favorite color, but she needs to know what to get, like, yesterday. What's Kosuke's?"

Kyoya thinks over his answer. He certainly does not recall Kosuke making any sort of implication to what her favorite color is. He does recall her wearing blue quite often, though. "Blue, I think."

"You think?" Lin snorts. He's the type of person who finds everything funny. "You don't remember what your fiancee's favorite color is?"

Kyoya wants to counter with _Do you even know the name of the last girl you wined and dined?_ But Nico drives his elbow into his friend's side and scolds him, "Don't be a jerk, Lin."

"Alright, alright. Don't get your panties in a twist, I was just joking." Lin pulls out his phone-the case is decaled with a pin-up girl, which just seems like he's trying too hard—and starts tapping at the keys. "What about food allergies? I mean, Hana Isayama is going to be there and she's allergic to everything under the sun, so it probably doesn't matter, but still."

What all had Kosuke eaten at dinner? She definitely wasn't a vegetarian; she ate fish and chicken. Kyoya can't remember what, but something they ate had certainly had peanut oil in it, so a nut allergy was out of the question. Perhaps it would be easier to recall what she _hadn't_ eaten—

"Such an attentive boyfriend," Lin hooted. Students at the tables look up from their work to glare at them. One of the slumber party attendees throws her hoodie over her ears to stifle the sound. He _does_ sound like rooster when he laughs. "I should start a timer—Kyoya never takes so long to answer something!"

Despite himself, Kyoya can feel heat building up in him. He's embarrassed, but not in the face of Lin's laughter—he thinks it's impossible for anyone to care what Lin thinks of them. However, Kyoya has just realized that he's forgotten something very important. He has made a mistake, a miscalculation. He isn't known for doing that.

He and Kosuke had agreed to this facade of being infatuated lovebirds who are counting down the days to their wedding.

They just didn't bother to actually learn a single thing about each other.

"As simple a question though that might be," Kyoya says, with just enough of a bite to his voice to tell Lin he wasn't amused without being outright catty, "it simply hasn't come up before. I doubt Kosuke has any dietary restrictions, but if so, I'll tell you as soon as possible."

Lin snorts, and Nico scolds, "It's seriously not that funny."

"It is for _you_ guys." Lin is still clicking away on his phone, and Kyoya is only now seeing that he's wearing leather fingerless gloves studded with diamonds. They do not match his shiny gold shoes in any way, shape, or form. "I wouldn't be sayin' a thing if she was some girl you just started seeing, but you guys seriously put a ring on it before you even figure out favorite colors and food allergies? Doesn't sound like a golden life to me."

Kyoya bites his tongue so hard he almost draws the coppery taste of blood. Lin's parents have never given him ten seconds of a challenge in all of his life. There was no company for him to inherit, no reason for him to watch how others viewed him. He had diamonds and gold thrown at him whenever he asked. And now here he was, laughing in Kyoya's face—the face of someone who only agreed to this marriage in the first place because the livelihoods of hundreds of employees and the roots of his entire family tree were on his shoulders.

Unable to stop himself any more, Kyoya puts a finger on his chin, squints upward as if in deep thought, "Lin, did I talk to you in the halls this past week? While we were going to class?"

Lin just barely looks up at him. "I dunno. Why?"

"I could have sworn we did...Anyway, could you send Sakura my wishes when you see her next? I know I already have, but more couldn't hurt."

Sakura Karigo is one year below them, the latest leaf in a large family tree of an automobile-manufacturing family dating back to the 1900s. Her parents would never let her even think about dating, let alone _marrying_ , a guy like Lin. However, it was a secret to no one that she'd been head-over-heels for him for years now. She'd been scribbling hearts around his initials in her notebooks since middle school. It was also a secret to no one that they had gone out "as friends" two weeks ago, and that in their talking, poor innocent Sakura had mentioned her taste aversion for black olives. Then while she went to the bathroom, Lin snuck some into her pasta as a prank.

The night ended with Sakura being taken to the hospital, spending a large part of the night vomiting, and only being able to stomach chicken broth for two days. All because of Lin, the playboy, the "guy who had the ladies falling at his feet" (a title given to Lin by Lin.)

Lin's mouth puckers like he's sucked on a lemon. Beside him, Nico makes a sound—a cough, a laugh, it's hard to tell. All Kyoya knows it that he said his words innocently enough that Lin will look crazy to everyone in the cafe if he lashes out at Kyoya.

"Yeah," Lin agrees. "Sure, I'll do that."

"Unless—" Kyoya pretends to have just remembered something, and makes his face fall appropriately. "Please forgive me, Lin. I completely forgot about what happened between you two—I can't believe I could be so careless."

So, after their date, Sakura had found Lin walking the halls of Ouran University. Though she was now going to be getting some sort of treatment for her visceral taste aversion to black olives, she also wanted everyone in the halls (and perhaps all of Japan) to know what Lin had done.

"Hey, no, it's cool." Lin's voice is starting to take on the clipped, flat tone of a robot. "I'll just tell one of her friends."

"Really, I'm truly sorry. I can't imagine how humiliated I would be if all of my classmates heard me being called an 'immature manchild whose fashion sense screams of daddy issues and probably only walks and talks the way he does to compensate for—'"

"Let's go to class, Nico."

Lin grabs his friend with a shocking strength and starts dragging him to the door. Nico strains his neck back to tell Kyoya, "See you around!" Then they both head back out into the rain, and Kyoya is at last free to go back to his peace and quiet.

 _Yeah, right,_ he mentally scoffs. Now everything's just louder.

He's going to have to figure out some way to know Kosuke better, at least to sway any suspicion. He could make her some kind of 'answer' sheet'—what's her favorite color, any allergies, favorite food…birthday? Does he know her birthday? No, he doesn't, which— _oh,_ that would be a _terrible_ question to miss. It wouldn't answer everything, but he'd know more if he went against his father's word and looked into her background. Why didn't he want him to do that, again?

Kyoya decides an answer sheet would be best as he gathers his things and leaves. Turns out the trip to the café wasn't worth it, after all. He'll just have to get caught up tonight, or early, _early_ tomorrow morning.

As he's walking down the hall, just another student in the current, he looks up and sees a flash of blond hair. Kyoya pulls himself short as Tamaki passes. He's talking animatedly to a classmate, hands moving about, animated. He doesn't notice Kyoya and disappears behind the wall, and Kyoya moves forward just enough to watch him go. He wonders if he's talking about the wedding. It's almost the only thing he talks about these days.

Well, that, and a double date. Kyoya has managed to dodge his texts for a little over a week now, but he knows he's running out of time before confrontation. Especially now that Kosuke is in the picture, Tamaki—and maybe the others'—patience for his periods of no responses will only get shorter.

 _It's not_ just _Tamaki you have to worry about. If no one sees you and Kosuke together, it'll be hard to believe you're already in love._

They _could_ decide to just make up stuff if anyone asks—"So what have you two done together lately?"—but if Kosuke says one thing, and Kyoya says another at the same time, that'll look more than suspect.

As he's mulling this over, there's another flash of blonde across the miniature courtyard. Past the water fountains and the rose bushes, Kosuke has some stapled papers in her hand, puzzled as she looks at them. She's wearing a lacy pink shirt and high-waisted denim jeans. Kyoya guesses she likes the high-waisted look.

A brunette student walks up to her, and though Kyoya can't hear what she says, Kosuke responds with a friendly smile and gesture down the south hallway. The brunette nods her thanks and walks away, letting Kosuke go back to her puzzling. For a moment, she turns to look back at the girl with guilt and regret. Clearly second-guessing her directions.

 _Just go ahead and get it over with._ Kyoya takes a breath, grits his teeth, and marches forward. A darker voice adds, _She won't turn you down in public._

Kosuke does not notice him approaching until he is only a few feet away. She tenses up as instantly as a deer that has heard a twig snap. The hand reaching into her satchel stills. Kyoya is not hurt, nor is he surprised. Their dislike of each other is crystal-clear now—sight of him alone makes her blood run sour.

Still, knowing that there is an audience, Kosuke composes herself. She smiles, tender and affectionate. Kyoya wants to say she has the look of someone seeing their beloved down pat, though given, he wouldn't be knowledgeable of such a thing.

"Kyoya!" She chirps his name short and sweet—the ring of a bell. Beneath it, he knows what she's really saying. _Oh. It's you._ "Are you heading to class?" _What do you want._

"Just left, actually." Calm down and say your lines. "I hope your day is going well?"

"It is!" _It was, before you showed up_. "I've finally gotten an idea of where everything is now, so at least I'm not asking for directions as much. Or getting lost." She punctuates this with a giggle. _God, I hate this._

Kyoya lets out a little huff of a laugh, too. "I told you, I'd be more than happy to give you a personal tour sometime."

Somewhere off to the side, a girl lets out the two-note "Awwww~!" Her friend swats her arm for being too loud, but Kyoya is thankful for the applause. He knows students are watching them, smiling, melting. This happens with most Ouran relationships—not just the official engagements, but any that is already implying 'forever.' Students coo and fawn and point at them almost as a blessing. Couple this with Kyoya already having a status of his own, and he and Kosuke are currently The (with a capital T) new couple.

Though, as a side note, not everyone is happy. Kyoya opened his case one day to find a letter from a former Host Club customer who wanted to tell him her feelings one last time. Alongside six others, all from different women. He thought it best not to follow up with any of them. Even now, some of the admiring gazes have daggers among them.

Also aware that their interactions have been stamped with approval, Kosuke sweetly asks, "Did you need something?"

"I wanted to know if you have plans for this Friday? I know school has been taking the attention of you and me both, but I certainly wouldn't mind a date. What do you say?"

The peanut gallery quietly reacts ("Aw," "So sweet, "She's so lucky...") and though Kosuke keeps her smile, and even widens it, he does not miss the flash of horror in her eyes.

A date. Together. Just the two of them. Actually spending time with one another.

Kosuke's gaze says, _Why would I ever want to do that._

Kyoya's answers, _Just say yes._

So Kosuke presses a finger to her lips, thinking—truly thinking. "Well...I promised my siblings we would do something together this weekend. And you can't break a Big Sister Promise. Do you think maybe we could do Thursday instead?"

"Of course. But we should all do something together sometime."

Kosuke laughs. Kyoya is the only one who hears the disgust. The sheer idea of him, her, and her baby brother and sister all being together as if they're a family...Even Kyoya has to ponder for a second if he went overboard, because the idea sounds just as insane to him.

"I'll ask if they can fit it in their schedules. So—Thursday?"

"Thursday it is."

At some point or another, _everyone_ has started watching them, and now Kyoya is rigid. There has to be a big finale of some sort. The masses are demanding it, because this is Ouran, and everything is a spectacle.

A flicker of movement catches his eye—Kosuke is tapping her pinkie on the strap of her satchel. She does it again, deliberately.

It's just a moment, no more than two seconds, but Kyoya finds the rhythm again. He takes Kosuke's hand in his, holding it the way a knight in shining armor would do for his princess, and bends down to press a kiss against her knuckles.

There are sighs and coos and squees. The delight of the crowd seems to physically touch him like a breeze. Some daggers sharpen. Kyoya is silently praying that Renge does not appear to make this hellscape even worse.

Right at this moment, a breeze drifts down into the small courtyard, rustling the rose bushes and sending up a cloud of pink and scarlet rose petals to dance around them, which is just...Too much. Sickeningly too much.

Kosuke withdraws her hand slowly to her chest. She has summoned a blush onto her cheeks, along with another infatuated smile—the look of adoration. Her blue eyes are only looking at Kyoya.

And they are ice cold. _I am going to scrub my knuckles with bleach now._

Kyoya gives her a smile of his own and walks away. _I'm going to go tear off my lips with my bare hands._

* * *

The date was supposed to be normal—or as normal as it could be, given their current situation. Kyoya makes a reservation for Chapels, a fine dining establishment with two Michelin stars and a reputation of one of the finest restaurants in the country. It's so highly esteemed that every published critique of it was done so anonymously. Kyoya only manages to get a reservation because the owner is a friend of a friend of a cousin of an uncle, or something just as complicated.

He texts the address to Kosuke. It is the only message between either of them on their phones. His has auto-corrected her name to 'Kousuke' and for now, he doesn't care to change it.

It isn't really until after he books it that Kyoya thinks a restaurant was probably his best choice. Classic and predictable yes, but Kosuke has proven a passion for food and a fascination for fine dining, so perhaps she will be more at ease in such a setting. If not out of the kindness of his heart, he can at least prevent her mood from rotting any further.

He looks forward to it about as much as he looked forward to having his wisdom teeth removed three years ago. Just him and Kosuke, sitting across from each other, keeping civil only because they're in public.

Heaven on earth.

Kyoya has entertained the idea of just apologizing for the sake of getting past this already. He still holds that what he said was right, but now he can admit that his delivery _was_ maybe a bit condescending—and Kosuke wasn't wrong to point out his hypocrisy. Then he catches her withering looks as they pass each other in the hallways, and he changes his mind.

The good thing is that even if he has slipped to a humiliating degree as of recent, Kyoya is well-trained in the art of being civil to someone he doesn't care for. He doesn't have to apologize, necessarily, just mind his behavior enough to not give Kosuke any good reason to snap at him.

This whole situation is quite romantic.

He books the reservation as he makes his way to work after school. It's almost a normal day; for him, at least. He travels around the building doing his typical tasks, following up with employees, signing his signature, writing notes down with his fountain pen until his hand is cramping. One of the board members asks him to bring him some coffee, which Kyoya does, albeit he's very tempted to throw it in the man's face because that is _not_ his job. His largest task of the day is a stack of paperwork about a foot tall, a mix of requests, complaints, and reports. Someone has asked for a pay raise, reasoning that he's been a "loyal employee" for a long time with a proven good work ethic. Kyoya struggles to find a way to respectfully remind her that she's been working with them for less than six months and already has two markups in her record.

It all wears him down to the bone, but Kyoya is grateful for all of it, if it means that he at least stands a chance of being more than just the thirdborn son. He tries to mind his complaints, even if they're only in his mind. He really does enjoy this work. He knows that office jobs are often portrayed as worse than death, boring, slow as molasses, imprisoned in a gray cubicle tapping on a keyboard all day, but not so for Kyoya. It's familiar, an easy way to apply his skills. Probably not everyone's passion, but it is his.

One of the best things about this is that he has his own office. It doesn't have his name on the door, and it is quite small—the desk has to be pressed against one wall to allow enough space for him to actually get to his chair. But it is Kyoya's. There is a large window against the back wall with a view of Tokyo which, though not stunning, makes for as good a decoration as any. He has everything organized the way he needs, no one has access to it but himself...Most importantly, it is quiet. The walls are so thick that he can only hear footsteps as they pass right outside the door.

The peace and quiet distracts him from the crick in his neck and the soreness in his hand. This is his home away from home.

Half past three, his door opens without any knock, which can only herald his father—and Mr. Miyamoto, whose self-importance cannot be rivaled. Yoshio steps into his office with no greeting, no words, even as Kyoya stops what he's doing to meet his eyes.

Yoshio picks up his finished work and flips through it. The papers are covered in stamps and signatures—some with yellow sticky notes, which in Kyoya's language translates to something that requires a written response. Yoshio sets it down carefully, already being half a foot thick. Kyoya is halfway finished. He could be done by six if nothing interrupts him, but as something usually does, he could be going home as early as seven or as late as eleven.

"How much of this is urgent?" Yoshio asks.

He's looking at the unfinished work. Kyoya does not reach for it, does not flip through it. He needs to make it clear that he already knows everything within, without going "um" and "uh" as he awkwardly shuffles the papers to make sure.

"Requesting a quick response, perhaps, but not urgent. There's a CT scanner possibly broken beyond repair—that's the only one that I imagine could use a response no later than tomorrow."

"Give it to me."

Kyoya obediently pulls it out and hands it over, but Yoshio doesn't look at it himself. He sighs. "It will be replaced with an Amida Health model as soon as possible."

 _So it's already happening_. He doesn't know why he thought they would wait until after the wedding, which could be years away. Their situation was urgent enough as-is. They'd previously had all their hospital machinery and equipment provided by _other_ businesses they'd acquired over the years. Kyoya isn't sure how his father has handled such a change, but at least he's not the only one this time; his brothers apparently in the same darkness he is.

"You can take this home with you," Yoshio says. "There's no reason for you to stay any longer."

If he leaves, then he won't be on call to help with anything else, which Kyoya _doesn't_ want. The shift from being here almost every hour of the day to being shooed out the door as soon as possible in unsettling him. It scares Kyoya to think about it too long. Giving him a chance could have been a lie the whole time—the past few months could have been nothing more than his punishment for what happened with the Tonnere Group. With the upcoming marriage, he has "served his purpose," and Yoshio can finally get rid of him.

Kyoya stuffs the notion away like clothes in an overpacked suitcase. He isn't going to slip up and let his fears take him over. He'll prove himself.

"I'd like to stay here to finish. I'll have everything done by this evening regardless, but if I'm needed, I'd rather already be here."

He hopes his father gets his point without taking it as rebellion. Yoshio watches him, eyes still behind his glasses. Kyoya hates these moments, these calm before the storms where he can only guess if lightning will strike.

"It's your choice," his father finally says. His tone could either be casual permission, or veiled passive-aggression. It's a tone unique to Yoshio Ootori.

His father turns for the door, and Kyoya hesitates. This is the first time he's seen him since he learned of the impending divorce. He hasn't heard from his brothers for any news, hasn't heard from Fuyumi. Everyone has dispersed from one another—as if each and every one of them is trying to erase the revelation from existence, and being apart helps.

Yoshio doesn't seem any different. He must have already accepted it. Jin didn't say _when_ they decided to divorce, and as Kyoya tries to form a timeline in his head, he just can't quite figure out what happened when. Jin's "business trip" could have happened afterwards—an escape from the stress, or a celebration? Or perhaps it had been a business trip at first, but then she had some kind of realization in the middle of it.

If it happened just around the same time that DomenMed left, then Kyoya could have missed any reactions from his father. If he was angry, or bitter, or hurt, Kyoya for once wouldn't blame himself for noticing, not when he would naturally assume that it was because of their uncertain future.

When was the last time he and his father had a personal conversation? They do not have the father-son bond that would be considered normal—perhaps even alien in some perspective. Was it at his grandfather's funeral? Kyoya cannot remember the last time they touched each other, a hug, a pat on the shoulder.

Was it when Yoshio slapped him?

Kyoya knows that it's a matter of fact that they need to discuss this, yet it seems an unsolvable puzzle. They don't have these talks. Kyoya does not approach his father about anything in their personal lives, family or otherwise. They talk about their company, _other_ companies, plans and people and events. He is unsure if there is even a way for him to ask after the divorce in a way that will not incur Yoshio's anger. Even in the best possible outcome, he sees the whole discussion happening in less than thirty seconds, with simple sentences and clipped tones.

Kyoya thinks all of this in the few sparse seconds that Yoshio goes to the door. He thinks about calling out to him. They are alone, no one is listening. They can talk. They need to talk.

Then his father is gone.

His pen is still in his hand, but for a moment Kyoya just looks at it, twiddling with the clicker and the grip. He might have just missed an opportunity, or he might have wisely held his tongue. He is either wise or cowardly. He cannot tell.

* * *

No one comes to interrupt Kyoya for the rest of the evening. He finishes his paperwork at six-thirty, makes a round, and comes up with nothing. For a minute he contemplates finding _something_ to do, maybe even organize his desk drawers, or take inventory of his own office supplies, and thinks against it. He does not want to go home yet, but it'd be better than making up pathetic excuses to stay.

When he comes home, he's forming his schedule for the night—schoolwork, the Project, information he needs to check up on. It feels weird to have so much time. He may have to find something to do.

Does Kyoya even have a hobby? Unless making spreadsheets counts, he doesn't think so.

His phone starts ringing in his pocket as he's walking up to their door. He steels himself. If it's Tamaki, he's going to have to answer. He can't avoid him forever.

Thankfully—or perhaps not—it is Haruhi on his caller ID. Relief in dread fill him at the same time. It always helps to talk to Haruhi. Sometimes it seems like she's the only person in his life who behaves calmly, _sanely_. Yet, Kyoya is still fighting that stupid, immature, annoying feeling of longing whenever she's near. Even hearing her voice fills him with bitter-sweetness.

He answers on the second ring as he opens the door. "Hello."

_"Okay, good. I didn't know if you were still going to be at work or not—"_

"Kyoya!"

Jin seems to pop out of the fabric of space itself with a beaming smile. Kyoya hasn't seen her lately, either. Despite declaring that she will be living in the estate with them indefinitely—her belongings coming in a shipment of luggage that could have filled an airport—she has always been out somewhere or another.

She looks more like his mother now that she's not literally falling over drunk. She's dressed herself in sweatpants and a sweatshirt designed from a Parisian designer whose name Kyoya is coming short of at the moment. (Though he often chuckles, sighs, or ignores Haruhi's still-lingering disbelief at how "damn rich people" work, even he has to admit that the idea of sweatpants costing 40,000 yen is ludicrous.) Despite the comfy clothes, her makeup is as immaculate as ever.

"Hold on, Haruhi," he says quickly, before stifling the receiver of his phone against his shoulder. "Yes, Mother?"

"I fixed it!" Jin holds out her hand to him. In her palm is a bracelet of emeralds and sapphires linked together, only broken by the clasp and a silver nameplate with _Kosuke_ scrawled in elegant writing. "Now you can give this to her!"

Kyoya takes it, knowing he'll have to clarify who it's from first. He can only imagine Kosuke's face, thinking it's from _him._ "I will."

"Good, good, good!" Jin turns to walk away just as quickly as she came.

Despite his troubles with Haruhi, he'd rather speak to her than deal with his mother's painful attempts at acting as though nothing has changed. She's been a ray of sunshine ever since she told them all the truth, oblivious that she's blinding them all.

Just as soon as he raises the phone back up to his ear and gets out, "Alright, what—?" Jin spins back around to ask, "When are you seeing her again?"

Kyoya presses his lips together _before_ he turns to her again. "We're having a date this Thursday."

"Oh, good."

They both turn. Kyoya starts again. "I'm sorry, what were you—?"

"Where are you going?"

Kyoya chokes down a sigh. "We're going to Chapels for dinner."

"Oh, that's wonderful!"

He's almost made it to the stairs. No one comes into his room, he'll be safe there. "Haruhi, what were you say—?"

"You know, I'm friends with the owner's brother's daughter's half-sister!"

 _That's what it was,_ Kyoya's boiling mind snips out. He clenches his jaw until it hurts. "Yes, Mother, I know. Haruhi, what—?"

"Oh, are you on the phone with her right now?"

"N—" Kyoya stops. "Yes, I am."

"Oh, go on, go on, talk to her!" Jin flits her hands at him as if he's been lingering around for no reason. "Tell her I said hello!"

So Kyoya drones to Haruhi, "Mother says hello."

There is brief silence dripping with confusion. _"Tell her I said hi, too…?"_

Kyoya turns, but Jin has disappeared. Finally he can breathe. He doesn't know if he'll be able to reel in his temper if he's intercepted by anything on his way to his room.

" _Everything okay over there?"_

"My mother needed to tell me something," Kyoya explains. He presses the phone between his cheek and shoulder while he fishes out his keys to his room. The only other people with one are the housekeepers. He used to keep it unlocked, but he can no longer trust Fuyumi not to make a surprise visit and "organize" his drawers. "I'm sorry. I'm listening now."

" _You're not at work, are you? It's not that important, I can call back if you are."_

"No, I'm at home." As soon as he opens the door, the familiarity of the space washes over him like warm water in a bath. He goes to his desk and sets his suitcase down, as he always does. "Don't worry."

" _Wow. I think that's the first time you've sighed in relief about not being at work."_

Did he sigh? If he did, it's only because of literally everything else, not work. He's kept a perfect record of not even _implying_ a complaint with his position at Ootori Medical so far. He is grateful. That is a fact that he will not forget.

"It's not work," he clarifies. He minds his tone—he's fallen into the nasty habit of snapping at the others for things they haven't done. "And I'm fine, regardless. What did you need to talk about?"

" _Well…"_ Haruhi clicks her tongue. _"I don't know if I'd say 'need'…"_

"You didn't call without a reason."

" _You're right, Kyoya. Your wisdom astounds me once again."_ Despite her words, there isn't any venom in her voice. Not much, anyway. _"When's the last time you talked to Tamaki?"_

"Yesterday, after class."

" _What did you talk about?"_

"He asked if my classes were going well, because he has to be sure of it. He wanted to know if I needed any help with my assignments for French." Kyoya pauses. "It's strange. I think this is the only time since he came to Ouran that he has a clear advantage in an academic subject that I _could_ benefit from."

" _Hey, Tamaki isn't stupid. Didn't he pass that Greek test he didn't even have to take?"_

He decided not to address that he took said test because he thought he was cursed for stepping on a cat puppet. "Barely, but you're right."

" _Did he say anything about a double-date?"_

Kyoya bites the inside of his cheek. "Yes, but I thought that was a given and you didn't need to be told as much."

Haruhi makes a sound. A sigh, a laugh. _"Well, do you want to? Because the fact that you haven't said anything yet seems to say 'no.'"_

Kyoya tries to imagine it again. Tamaki and Haruhi, him and Kosuke. All sitting together, two puzzle pieces that just don't fit. It doesn't matter that Kosuke has become not just Haruhi's best friend, but an integral part of her and Tamaki's lives now. He just can't cope with it. His mind blinks the image off like a coping mechanism.

"I've just always found the idea rather odd," he semi-lies. "Dates are supposed to be time dedicated for two people to focus only on each other. It seems strange to have two other people there."

" _Mm…I guess you're not_ wrong." Kyoya hears the crick of a chair as Haruhi sits. _"I think it's just a different name for some friends hanging out, though. It wouldn't be_ too _different from all of us hanging out together like we used too, right?"_

Kyoya could not disagree more. Surely Haruhi realizes how wrong she is as soon as she says that. This is in _no way_ similar to them and the other Hosts going on their misadventures. Least of all because Kyoya would much rather deal with the lot of them having to trek through an alligator-infested indoor jungle than this double date.

While he's thinking this, something else occurs to him. "Do _you_ want to do this? I wouldn't think of it as something you would be interested in."

" _Maybe I wasn't, at first,"_ she admits.

Kyoya huffs a sarcastic laugh. "Is Tamaki finally wearing you down?"

 _"He's been talking non-stop about it, yes, but..."_ Another shuffle of movement. _"I don't know, I think I'm starting to warm up to it. It's just hanging out with some people I'm already close to, isn't it?"_

Close. Are they close?

It's hard for Kyoya to describe the relationship between them—that is, the one they have, not the one he wants. They have the comradery of two people taking a break in the corner while an insane party is raging in the room. They are friends. He's helping her with her wedding and he'll be Tamaki's Best Man. Still, he can't recall the last time they've hugged. It seems like months and months. Rarely do they talk about meaningful things, and maybe that has to do with Haruhi's eagle-eyed precision with such topics, scaring him away. She's the only person he can think of that he's never been able to hide anything from.

Except _not_ being infatuated with her best friend. Apparently.

"I suppose," he allows.

_"Plus..."_

Haruhi stops herself, hesitating. Kyoya urges her forward with, "Plus...?"

_"Plus, it would help both of us get used to this, right?"_

There it is, the arrow that zips its way right through the armor. Kyoya's shoulders go stiff. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

" _I get that you don't like being surprised, and when you are, you try not to be. If that makes sense. You said you were cool with Kosuke and I being best friends, but I can tell it rattled you more than you're letting on."_

"It's...been difficult to wrap my head around, I'll admit." Kyoya cannot admit to her how correct she is. He doesn't— _whine_. He'll sound so overdramatic and immature if he vents to her about how uncomfortable this is making him. "Only because it's so much of a coincidence."

 _"Well don't think I'm just taking it in stride,"_ Haruhi laughs without humor. _"I can hardly believe it, myself. Just...I don't know how to put it into words. I'd never seen you two in the same room before; I didn't think you would ever meet until Tamaki or I introduced you. Now you're getting_ married _..."_

"I understand." Relief floods through him. Even if he won't vent all of this out to her, he takes comfort in knowing that he isn't alone. Haruhi is...braver? than he is for letting herself admit it. "It's perfectly reasonable to be shocked about it."

 _"And..."_ Haruhi hesitates again. Trying to find the words, trying to mind her tone. "Just the fact that you two are already so...so..."

Kyoya's relief fades away at once. He knows that tone from a mile away. She's incredulous. She doesn't believe it.

Maybe it was a bad plan right from the beginning, trying to trick _her_ of all people. Unless he can persuade her otherwise, she won't let this go. She's going to keep chipping away at him until he admits that not only does he not have any romantic feelings for Kosuke, but why they lied in the first place. She'll probably be annoyed at best, furious at worst.

Despite their current state, Kyoya apologizes to Kosuke in his mind. They have the same secret. Him confessing will be her confessing, and then she'll have to tell Haruhi her side of the lie.

If only to keep up the act a few seconds longer, Kyoya tries to lightly offer, "Close?"

_"Yeah. Close."_

She does not bite the words out. They're not yet dripping with the message of, "I already know you're lying, Ootori, just admit it." She's circling around the topic. Walking on eggshells.

 _Maybe she isn't positive_ , guesses Kyoya. He'll have to take that and run with it.

"You sound incredulous," he tells her. If she won't take the first shot, he will.

 _"Do I?"_ Haruhi lets out a short sigh. _"Sorry. I'm not trying to be accusatory or anything...It's not like I can just decide that you_ don't _like her—_ love _her—but this is really hard to understand, too."_

Love her.

Kyoya imagines the words in his mind: I love Kosuke.

He feels sick.

If he lets the tiny but feral part of him take over, then he'll tell Haruhi right now that she's absolutely wrong. Maybe he'll even tell her that she's the one he loves. She and her fiancé both.

He doesn't. He suffocates that part of him quickly. This is the real world, and doing such a thing would be unacceptable. It would ruin everything. Kyoya might have his fantasies, but he also has his predictions. Every single time he's thought about the _realistic_ outcome of a confession, they are not happy. At best, she and Tamaki kindly turn him down. Tamaki would probably have many more poetic words than her, but rejection all the same. At worst, they are uncomfortable. They try to distance themselves from him. He'll ruin everything past the point of salvation.

More importantly, Haruhi and Tamaki are each others' soulmates, they're going to get married, and Kyoya is going to marry Kosuke to save his family. All other reasons are inconsequential.

So, to keep up this lie to the woman he loves, he counters with, "Is it because it's happened so fast?"

 _"Uh—yeah. For starters. You've only known each other for—what, a little over a month now?"_ She doesn't let him answer. "No, no, hold on. I'm not trying to dictate anything, like I said. That's fine. Maybe it's strange to me, but it's not a big deal."

He can't recall the last time Haruhi has tried to back out of a conversation she began. Has she, ever? She must be truly distressed if she's so conflicted about even talking about it. Perhaps it's just made worse with all the surrounding details thrown in.

"It does seem strange, I'll grant you," he responds. He can't just explode and scream about how much he loves Kosuke—that would be a whole storm of red flags. "I will admit to being...rather surprised, myself."

Haruhi pauses for so long his nervousness gains new life. He wishes he could see her. He's so much better at getting a read on people when he can see their faces and body language. Though he shares that skill with Haruhi, so it might be for the best.

 _"Really?"_ Haruhi asks. The sound of her voice is difficult to describe—surprised, cautious, but perhaps just ever-so-slightly relieved. Kyoya can practically hear all the thoughts bouncing around her head like pachinko balls.

Kyoya finally sits on the edge of his bed. "Is something wrong?"

 _"No, 'wrong' is too strong a word. Let me think for just a second."_ Haruhi is quiet for four beats, then continues. _"All this time that we've known each other, you've never shown any interest in anyone. I wasn't like the others, making bets on when or if it would happen, what the person would be like—"_

"They made bets?"

 _"—The twins and Renge, not that you needed me to clarify. Anyway, I didn't really think too much of it. It wasn't any of our business when you started seeing people, if ever."_ Haruhi's voice softens. _"Some of the others said that you might be put in an arranged marriage since all your other siblings were, but some of them said you probably wouldn't since you're the youngest."_

She says it casually, matter-of-fact, probably unaware of how the words fill his mouth with a bitter taste. There's a hint of relief in her voice, as if she held onto the hope that Kyoya would be spared from such a thing and given the chance to truly fall in love. Just at the cost of acknowledging that as the thirdborn son, he is all but useless to his family.

_"But like I said, I didn't think too much of it. If it happened, it happened, and if it didn't, it didn't. Though I was a little worried when you got into an arranged engagement after all. I was worried that you were being forced to do something you didn't want to do."_

"I've been raised my entire life to expect that I would have my fiancée chosen for me. Even as the youngest son, I could ensure a beneficial partnership for the family. It was only a matter of time, really." Any pride he'd had of keeping his cool saying that fades at once when Haruhi pauses once again. Wary that he'd talk so bluntly about the thing that introduced him to Kosuke? Upset that he would just accept having such a major decision made for him? Kyoya goes on, "I didn't mean to interrupt. Go on?"

 _"I'm rambling. Basically, even if I didn't think much about it, I guess I at least kind of had an idea of what it would be like. Even a tiny one."_ Haruhi swallows _. "And I just...wasn't expecting it to happen so fast. Not for you."_

Kyoya feels his eyes narrow even though he's alone. He sincerely hopes he isn't in store for another installment of Haruhi pointing out something about himself that even he doesn't know. It always rocks him to his core, which he can't afford at the moment. "I'm not quite sure I know what you mean."

 _"What I mean is...I've seen how you are with people, and you don't make friends that quickly. I'm not saying you're m—"_ She stops. _"...Okay, maybe you are mean_ sometimes, _but other than the Host Club you don't really interact with that many people. You'll be polite to them, but you don't really seek them out. You keep tabs on everyone at school even though you never really hang out with anyone but us."_

"I still fail to see anything wrong with staying informed about my classmates. Everyone is connected to someone, somehow, and you never know what detail about their lives will or won't be important later."

_"As you've explained before. Still, even before you starting your job at the company, you didn't spend time with other people. Not unless it was at a party, or a wedding, or something."_

Kyoya clenches and unclenches his jaw. "I've always preferred the company of books to the company of people. I've been that way for a very long time."

Why was that? Well, a busy schedule, for starters. Mindfulness of his grades. Though he also supposes he does have some "checkboxes" that people tend to fill out—some red flags that tell him he just isn't interested in getting to know them better. Too eager to please, too loud, too gossipy. Sometimes it was as simple as personalities he thought would clash, and he doesn't think that assuming as much would be rude.

 _"I'm not trying to shame you for it, or anything. It's not like you signed a contract saying you'd be everyone's best friend. You know, you guys are the only real friend group I've ever had. I didn't really hang out with anyone in middle school and it never bothered me, so."_ Kyoya can almost hear Haruhi shrug on the other side. _"Anyway, the people that you_ were _friends with, I can tell it kind of took a while. When I started at the Host Club, we were around each other all the time for months, and we still didn't really talk much. It took a long time for us to really be 'friends.'"_

"I suppose." Kyoya thinks back to his behavior in high school, and he doesn't regret much of it, if any. Now he supposes he does feel guilty for his often dismissive and outright snide treatment of Haruhi when she'd just come to the club, but that was mostly due to her being the person who'd costed them a potential eight million yen. If there was one thing Kyoya hated in this world, it was having a budget figured out to the last decimal and then having to go back and recalculate it.

 _"What really matters is that we're all friends_ now _, even if it did take a while. I mean, we're all still together even though the Host Club is over, so that says it all."_

"You're not wrong. Though don't think there haven't been times where I've regretted agreeing to Tamaki's idea of a club."

_"You do realize you're preaching to the choir, right? Trust me, after the thousandth time of being kidnapped against your will, you start to lose patience...But I still loved the Club. Still do. And I don't regret meeting all you guys, even if it did happen in a weird way."_

Kyoya almost loses himself in this conversation. Perhaps Haruhi has, too. It's honest, simple. Much different than any other conversations he's had for weeks now. Even so, this isn't exactly two friends just reminiscing about the old days, even if they both wish it was.

"What does this have to do with Kosuke?"

 _"Right. Well..."_ She clears her throat. _"I guess the reason why I'm so surprised is that you've always taken a long time to get close enough to people to become friends, so the idea that you'd fall for someone in a month is just..."_

Haruhi doesn't say it. 'Weird.' 'Ridiculous.' 'Unbelievable.'

He may have made a misstep in this whole plan. He's been aware from day one that he'll have to be careful about how he presented his 'love' for Kosuke, but he reasoned that with his behavior, not his history. He is calm, cool, collected. Anyone who knows Kyoya Ootori would know he wouldn't be the type to swoon and sigh and drool over his loved one. Even if he was in love, he would keep his composure.

A misstep though it may be, Kyoya is bitterly relieved that it is not going to be a difficult fix. He just has to reroute things a bit.

"I see," he says.

He intends to say more, but Haruhi groans again. _"I shouldn't have said anything. It's none of my business. I was just..."_

"Worried?"

_"Can you be worried if nothing bad is happening? There's no reason to be freaked out about this...I should be happy for you and Kosuke..."_

As her voice goes softer, guilt weighs the words down. Another reminder that he doesn't have Haruhi all to himself. She must be just as guilty for not rejoicing on Kosuke's behalf. Has she spoken about this to her? If she has, Kosuke must have done a well enough job that Haruhi hasn't seen right through them, but if she hasn't, he may need to give Kosuke a word of warning.

He can't lose focus right now. Kyoya clears his throat and recites the words in his head.

"I understand why you're confused," he begins. "You're right about me taking time before calling someone my friend. If I'm being honest, I was wary when we were meeting for the first time."

_"Why?"_

"Our marriage will be a partnership between Ootori Medical and Amida Health. Moreso than that, Kosuke is going to be leading Amida Health herself one day." He reins in the annoyance that threatens to seep into his voice. "I often dismiss people if I simply don't see us getting along in the long run. I don't see the point in wasting the time to get to know someone and be around them if I know a friendship isn't going to last long."

Haruhi considers that. _"I guess that's fair."_

"A union like mine and Kosuke's would need to work _very_ well. While I'm assisting with Ootori Medical and she's leading Amida Health, we'll be each other's partners. We couldn't get caught up on our personality differences. If I noticed any 'warning signs' in Kosuke, I couldn't just cut contact. We'll be together as partners for the rest of our lives."

" _So...that's why you like her so much?_ " She lets out a laugh, a little disbelieving. _"You think she has good leadership skills."_

" _I find leadership skills_ attractive, _yes, but that's not the only reason. That's why I_ began _to 'like her so much.' Once I realized she was a hardworking person who wanted to lead her company as efficiently as possible, I was at ease."_

 _I'm lying through my teeth._ At least he thinks so. Is Kosuke a hard worker? He hasn't had much to prove that. She must have made good grades in school, and she likes to cook for her siblings, but he has no proof besides that. As for 'wanting' to lead her company, she doesn't have much to show for that, either. She's learned nothing of it, all questions frazzle her to the point of being speechless...She will learn how to lead in due time, but not because she _wants_ to.

Haruhi hums, considering his words. _"What about after that?"_

"After that, I discovered she had other traits that I admire in people." _Careful with what you say. She knows Kosuke better than you do, so she'll catch a discrepancy from a mile away._ "She's very mature. She has her passions, but she knows when it is and isn't the time to talk about them. She plans for the future instead of living in the present. She's not submissive, but she's not abrasive, either—she can argue her side calmly, without devolving into petty insults."

 _Proud jerk,_ Kosuke's voice echoes between his ears.

Haruhi does not interrupt him as he speaks. She doesn't seem to have any rebuttals. Kyoya can't translate silence into words, but she seems to be in agreement.

 _"Yeah...Sometimes she reminds me of you, you know. She gets so caught up in planning for the future she forgets how to live in the present."_ She doesn't let him argue. _"Was there anything else? I hear what you're saying, but why do you love her instead of just being friends?"_

Kyoya is grateful that this is a question where silence would be expected. He truly has to think through this from beginning to end. If Haruhi ever decided that being a lawyer wasn't for her, then she should take up psychology, because she has a skill for picking people's brains apart piece by piece.

He has so little experience with this, and any conversations that had even broached the topic of romantic love in his life were not about his own. It's not as though he ever asked Tamaki _why_ he fell in love with Haruhi. Did it even matter, when it was so painfully obvious?

If he looked at it from a purely formulaic view, what made _storgi_ and _agape_ and _eros_ different? Attraction? Compatibility? How much time you spent together? How well you could see yourself and the other person working out in the long run?

Kyoya could try to explain why he fell for Tamaki and Haruhi, but he thinks he'd just be listing all their attractive qualities: Tamaki's unrelenting optimism, Haruhi's coolheadedness, Tamaki's instant care of others, Haruhi's unbreakable patience...Those are all the things that made them friends to begin with. There was some missing ingredient that led his feelings towards romance.

 _"You don't have to answer that,"_ Haruhi suddenly says. How long had he been taking to answer? _"What kind of question is that, anyway?"_

 _Think of something now._ Kyoya takes a step back, looks at the larger picture, turns his head side to side to see it at different angles. He can't answer _why_ he fell for Tamaki and Haruhi. There probably was no answer to that question that anyone could provide.

Maybe the question was, how did he _know_? There was some point—whether it was when Tamaki asked if he'd given up, or when Haruhi stood up to his father in front of everyone—where he realized that he no longer considered them as simple friends. But _how_?

The answer finally comes to him like a bolt of lightning.

He just doesn't want to say it. Lie about it. Apply it to Kosuke.

"I've never felt this way about anyone before."

The other side of the line is so quiet that at first he wonders if they'd been cut off from each other. But then he hears another creak of springs, and Haruhi only says _, "Oh."_

Kyoya feels like bile is about to come up in his throat. He always knew that he'd never be able to tell Haruhi or Tamaki how he felt. He'd resigned it to be his secret to keep for the rest of forever. He hadn't even considered what he'd do if they outright asked him if he felt that way about him, because they never would.

Now, though, he has officially lied. Not just kept it secret, denied it. Threw the key in the ocean.

_Why does it matter? Why does this bother you so much when it doesn't change anything?_

Kyoya doesn't know. It might have to do with the fact that Tamaki and Haruhi are two of the only people on this planet that he would ever feel comfortable sharing his thoughts with, and this just solidifies that he can't.

He keeps speaking because he has to keep the charade going. Haruhi has to believe he's never loved anyone but Kosuke, the utter stranger with a terrible attitude who couldn't even hold a candle to either Haruhi or Tamaki.

"I don't know why. I don't think I can factually explain why this is different, it just is. I look forward to being married to her. I want to...be the person who makes her happy."

_Please let that be enough._

There's another awful stretch of silence.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ Haruhi breathes.

"For what?"

" _Interrogating you and being so nosy about something that isn't my business."_ Haruhi groans the words out—he thinks she's hiding her face in her other hand. _"I guess I thought you were_ pretending, _or something. I just assumed the worst for no reason. Like I can't handle being proven wrong."_

Though it seems he's gotten his green light, Kyoya still hesitates at 'pretending.' "Why would I be pretending?"

 _"You're really focused on how other people see you. Me and the others are the only ones you actually act like yourself around, y'know?"_ False _. "You want to look good to people and be respected, so I guess...I guess I was worried that if you_ were _unhappy about the engagement, you would just try to save face."_

This is funny, in a way that doesn't make him want to laugh.

Haruhi _has_ seen through their game of pretend; she just hasn't realized it. Why is romance the one Achilles' heel in her deductions?

"Well, I assure you, I'm happy. I apologize if I'm not clicking my heels and whooping with joy, but—"

_"But that's not you, anyway. I'm such a jerk, I can't believe I just assumed all that."_

"It sounds like it at least came from a place of concern."

 _"Uh—well, kind of."_ Haruhi sighs. " _Like I said, I'm_ really _sorry for thinking it, it's just...I've been around Kosuke for a long time now. She's gone through a lot. She pushes herself past her breaking point sometimes and doesn't let herself take a breath. We've tried helping her as much as we can, but she refuses it—she has to take care of everything by herself. I don't think she'd ever admit it, but she seems lonely."_

 _Surely Tamaki and Haruhi can't be her only friends,_ Kyoya tells himself. Though he has no proof one way or the other.

Haruhi continues, _"So when I found out her dad had set her up in an arranged marriage, I freaked out. I thought she was making herself a martyr again. We didn't talk about it all the time—she's been single for as long as I've known her—but she did mention stuff like when she'd start dating again, the stuff she looked for in a guy...I thought it would be nice for her to find someone special, not marry a guy just because her dad said so."_

Though he takes this all in without interruption, Kyoya is conflicted. He's in the same situation, more or less. He's marrying because his family needs it and his father demands it. Except, Kosuke didn't _have_ to do this. If she didn't want to marry a stranger or run a business she knows nothing about, then Kyoya can't imagine why she would agree to do so.

 _"Now I know that she_ does _really like you, though. Even if it happened so fast. And I guess once I got past all the shock of it being_ you _, I might have...felt kind of angry. If her feelings were real, but you were just pretending. I didn't want her to get hurt."_

For a moment, Kyoya is almost jealous of Kosuke. It seems her personality has spared her too much suspicion. At the same time, he's both hurt and forcing himself not to be. Perhaps they should have just left their lie at just liking each other—not in love, not already infatuated, just on agreeable terms and not at all upset about their impending marriage. They went that extra step to try and give themselves an extra barrier for their friends to get through, but Kyoya probably should have expected some consequences.

He doesn't like that Haruhi would think of him as cold-hearted enough to take advantage of someone's feelings for him just to better his image. In truth, though, she's neither entirely wrong nor entirely right. Though he's never done anything like that before, he supposes he is at fault for his general history with others giving Haruhi such an idea.

 _"I'm sorry,"_ Haruhi says again. She sounds angrier with herself with every syllable. _"I'm sorry I thought that—I know you wouldn't do that. I can't believe I would ever think of such a thing. I should have never said anything—"_

"It's fine. I'm... the shock of the whole situation just confused things."

_"I guess, yeah. I think this whole thing just seemed to impossible to me that I've been looking for a reason for it to be wrong. Not just with you, either. Kosuke is a grown woman; she can make her own decisions. She doesn't need me to tell her what is and isn't okay for her to do. I'm not that great of a friend right now, am I?"_

"I'm not angry with you. Knowing Kosuke, I doubt she would be, either."

"Okay, good..." Haruhi lets out a syllable, stops herself, and goes again, _"Can I say something that's going to completely contradict what we've been talking about this whole time?"_

Kyoya, curious, tells her, "Go on."

 _"Even if it's still weird to me, and even if I had these stupid, nosy ideas...I am happy for you two."_ She scoffs a laugh. _"Sounds like I can't pick a story to stay with, huh?"_

Kyoya is at least happy that she isn't in the room with him to see his face. He's not smiling back, not giving a little half-smirk to ease her tension. He catches his face in the glass of his window and it's icy; void of anything. "It's nice to hear you say that, even if it is contradictory."

If he lets some iciness slip through, Haruhi seems to take it as dry humor. _"Yeah, yeah...I am happy, even if it doesn't seem like it. Maybe I never would have imagined you guys together, you're both really good people. I think that's why Tamaki's been so excited."_

_"To be fair, Tamaki has been pushing me to get married for years now. I think he would've been excited about me getting engaged to anyone."_

_"That's true. But still, if you two are already so close, then that's a good sign."_ She sighs again, but it's cathartic—the sigh of someone shrugging of a heavy weight. _"Sorry again."_

"You're forgiven."

On Haruhi's end, he hears a door creak open, then the unmistakable voice of Tamaki Suoh. He says something, and Haruhi replies. Kyoya cannot make out the words—he thinks Haruhi has her palm over the receiver now.

But he does hear Tamaki excitedly trill, " _Did you ask him about—?!"_ crystal clear. Then he hears him crystal clear and _very_ _loud_ when he exclaims, _"Hi, Kyoya!"_

Kyoya pulls his phone away from his head, but he thinks the damage to his eardrums is done. "Hello, Tamaki."

_"Did Haruhi ask you about—?"_

_"Yes, Tamaki, hold on."_ There's an audible struggle as Haruhi wrestles the phone to her, but Tamaki is probably pressing himself against it anyway to listen in. Haruhi's sigh ruffles in his ear. _"So would you be okay with doing a double date sometime, or...?"_

Kyoya at first just pauses to at least _sound_ like he's considering it. While Tamaki's voice explaining all the things they can do together (ice skating! fancy dinner! amusement parks!) fades off, he once again thinks that it would be an absolutely awful experience.

 _But_ then he thinks it through again. Haruhi described it as just "hanging out" with a group of friends. Now that he thought it over, it was probably silly of Kyoya to think that a double date entailed staring lovingly into your partner's eyes while you hold their hand...and two other people are doing the exact same thing next to you. Double dates wouldn't exist if they were so horrifically awkward.

Despite her profuse apologies and reassurances, Haruhi probably still has some lingering doubts—at least because she, like Kyoya, still hasn't quite wrapped her mind around the whole situation. He could assuage her fears if he showed her more "proof," possibly. Kosuke would, of course, go along with the act. They wouldn't fall over each other, but they could make their... _affection_ noticeable enough. While he's not doing the game of pretend, he'll just be spending time with Haruhi and Tamaki.

It will still be uncomfortable, definitely. However, compared to a night of sitting across from Kosuke with _nothing_ to distract or interrupt them, it's an improvement.

"We have a dinner reservation Thursday night for Chapels. If you two want, I can increase our table to four."

Haruhi's easy agreement is drowned out by Tamaki singing with joy. Thankfully he doesn't go on too long. He just nails home the expected points: he's so happy, this will be so amazing, so on, so forth. Then he and Haruhi both say goodbye, and the phone goes dead.

It's only after he's stuck in silence again that Kyoya realizes he's still holding onto the bracelet. Kosuke's name glints even under the dim light of his bedroom.

He chucks it to some dark corner and leaves it there.

* * *

Despite being one of many buildings Tokyo, just one bead on the bracelet of shops and other restaurants that wind down the street, Chapels has taken the extra effort to catch the eye. While the buildings around it are made with glass from top to bottom, the exterior of the building has several marble columns standing guard, and the entrance is two massive doors exquisitely gilded in gold. Even from the street the crystal chandeliers are hard to miss. The experience of eating inside is like being sent back in time to dine with Victorian royalty. You'd be treated like royalty if you even worked here—Chapels was notorious for its utterly strict code for both its kitchen and wait staff. They accepted no less than ten years of experience to be a chef there.

 _I wonder if Haruhi's been here before, Kyoya_ thinks as he's standing outside. _She hates it when Tamaki spends money on her, but she loves 'fancy' food even more._

It is awkward to be alone and waiting, and for a second he is once again (for the thousandth time that day) annoyed with Kosuke—and then stops himself. She's not late, she's just late for being early. She still has ten minutes.

Even as ten minutes become five, Kyoya is relaxed. He keeps an eye out more for an impossibly tall blond and his much shorter brunette fiancée. He spots them easily enough, right on the dot. Tamaki looks as immaculate as ever, wearing a snow-white suit as neat and pressed as an origami figure. Beneath it is a purple shirt and a tie exquisitely hand-painted with flowers. (Kyoya recalls from the twins that this is a style surging in popularity.) He's kept it simple but elegant, yet Haruhi looks even plainer beside him. She's never had the taste for glitz and glamor when it came to fashion—no matter how many times she's been coaxed into as much during her Host Club years. Her dress is lavender and knee-length, with sleeves that end just at her elbow. She has no accessories besides simple white flats and a necklace with a single pearl-and, of course, her engagement ring. Some might say that Haruhi dresses too simply too often, but Kyoya disagrees. She and Tamaki both look great and, more importantly, familiar.

Tamaki at least has the sense not to crush him in public, but he still pulls Kyoya in for a hug that is in no way called for. "I knew we'd get you to come around eventually!"

"You're victorious. Now let me go."

He does. Haruhi is looking around the passing crowd. It's not massive, as Chapels is not as large as it is lavish. She would have definitely spotted her blonde best friend by now. "Where's Kosuke?"

"She's...running late," Kyoya answers. It's nothing to get heated over. Everyone in the living world has been late to something at some point, rich or poor. "I'm sure she'll be here soon."

He has neglected to inform her that there will be some added company this evening. Why? Well, to be honest, Kyoya isn't quite sure. Maybe because, if anything, she'll be happy to have someone to talk to besides him. Or maybe he just wants to be a little petty and nip any plans she had of being snappy with him tonight in the bud.

"Maybe the kids," Haruhi says. "I know sometimes I have to pry Hitsuji off of her leg just so she can get out the door."

"It's no problem at all," Tamaki declares. "We'll just wait right here until she arrives."

After ten minutes, however, patience is wearing thin. The smile on Tamaki's face is clearly fake at this point. Haruhi's brows have knit together over her eyes that still scan the passing guests. As for Kyoya, he's trying his best to master the look of a man worryingly searching for his lover, and not like he's simmering with annoyance.

Finally he just can't take it any longer, and tells the others, "Why don't we walk inside and wait for her there? She might be embarrassed to see us all waiting on the side of the road like this."

"Of course, of course!" Tamaki links his arm with Haruhi's again. It's something they have had to practice over the years, considering how much he towers over her. "Shall we— _Oh_!"

But then he sees something or someone, and he zips in through the doors with a gust of wind in his wake. Haruhi is left reeling for a moment, but only sighs. Trying to stop Tamaki from pursuing something that has caught his eye is like trying to stop a dog from chasing a squirrel.

Haruhi falls in step with him as they enter. Whoever was the architect of the building was mindful to use what they had to work with—despite Chapels' relatively small size, the foyer somehow feels enormous. It takes Kyoya not long at all to see why: the walls slant forward the farther up they go, giving the optical illusion of a towering ceiling.

"Hey." Haruhi butts her elbow into his side. Despite talking to him, her eyes are regarding the gilded wallpaper and the marble tiles lined with silver beneath their feet—all with a mixture of wonder and annoyance. "You know I'm going to be flying out in two weeks."

He'd almost forgotten. Not entirely, but he hadn't been actively thinking on it. Haruhi would be going to the United States for her studies. She promised to keep contact with anyone and everyone, but she likely wouldn't be returning to Japan for at _least_ a month, probably longer. Thankfully her fiancé was nothing but happy for her. He'd been excitedly encouraging her to study vigilantly and enjoy the States instead of weeping at the thought of being separated from her—another reminder that Kyoya maybe thinks too lowly of him sometimes.

 _We'll probably be continuing the wedding plans over calls,_ Kyoya thinks. _Would she call me for any other reason? We don't typically talk just for the sake of talking._ "I'm aware. Are you going to accept my offer of trying to get your passport photo changed?"

"No, don't bother. 'S not the photographers' fault I look like I just climbed out of the sewers." Kyoya tries not to smile, but he couldn't help a smirk when he brought the image to his mind. She'd had her photo taken early in the morning after a long night of studying for exams, and the result was a photo of Haruhi with eyebags so heavy they looked as though they'd pull her cheeks down to the floor. "Anyway, I kind of need to ask you a favor."

"What's that?"

"I'm going to keep talking to Kosuke, of course. As often as I can. Just...Can you keep an eye on her for me while I'm gone?"

Kyoya looks down at her, and she looks up at him. There's still a crease in her brow. She's still not used to this, but she's asking anyway. "Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly. I just think that sometimes you have to remind her to take care of herself and relax. I'm worried that with school she's going to start pushing herself too hard."

 _You know her better than I do, so if you say so_...For a moment, guilt settles heavily in his gut. Here Haruhi is asking him to take care for one of her closest friends, because why wouldn't he? He's her fiancé and he loves her. It's not as though he can just tell her that actually, he and Kosuke hardly ever talk, so that's probably not going to happen.

"I'm sure Kosuke will keep herself together."

"You know, it's something that you guys have in common. I really admire your maturity and hard work, but I also have to remind you that getting three hours of sleep each night is not normal." Haruhi rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. "Just promise, okay? She doesn't have that many people who look out for her."

The word 'lonely' comes to his mind again. Kosuke seems social _enough_. She has to have more than just Haruhi and Tamaki. Or perhaps she's like Kyoya in that even if she knows many people, she can count on her fingertips how many she's _close_ to. Besides, she has her father to look out for her now.

 _Don't speculate too much._ "I promise I'll keep an eye on her."

Haruhi nods, a little relieved breath escaping her. She turns forward again, but just as soon as she does, her big brown eyes flutter and her head snakes back just so. "Kyoya, is that your—?"

"Kyoya!"

Ice comes crashing down on him.

Why.

Why, God, why?

"Over here, love!" Jin raises a hand and waves him over like a pageant girl greeting a crowd. Hair aside, she looks more than ever like the mother that Kyoya remembers. She's wearing a dress that is not only the rich green color of emeralds, but looks to be made of them—her tiniest movement makes the material shimmer, though there are no sequins or gems to be seen. A snowy mink shawl is wrapped around her elbows and clasped together at her front with a brooch shaped in a blossom. Each petal is delicately inlaid with diamonds and pearls. It isn't just her raised voice that has brought attention to her. Already men and women alike are regarding her with admiration and even jealousy, some raising their hands to whisper behind their knuckles. "You had me worried, you know. I thought you decided to cancel your plans."

"We didn't, Kosuke's just running late." Kyoya considers trying to save face here. He doesn't want to have even the hint of an argument with his mother with _anyone_ around, let alone Haruhi and Tamaki. Then he decides that he just isn't in a position to accept this. "Why are you here, Mother?"

"Surprise!" Jin chuckles. "I hope you don't mind your party of two becoming a party of three."

"Will you be joining us?" Tamaki asks, not even trying to hide the excitement bubbling in his words, but why would he? Tamaki has only met Kyoya's mother a handful of times in his life. She wasn't known for staying home quite often anymore. However few their encounters, though, they'd grown a relationship not unlike his with Fuyumi.

"A party of five, then!" Jin's face melts into despair. She holds her fingertips before her mouth, onyx eyes downcast to the floor. She seems to be channeling the energy of Greek statues of beautiful women caught in the throes of woe. Thus, why she and Tamaki get along so well. "I just feel so horrible that I've been away for so long, I haven't even had the opportunity to meet my future daughter-in-law...What kind of welcome is that to our family?"

"You haven't met her yet?" Jin shakes her head with practiced grace—her chandelier earrings sway instead of shake. Haruhi's brow twitches as though she is forcing it not to furrow again. The two of them have only met twice before, and Kyoya can only guess to the impression his mother has given Haruhi. Especially considering she'd been missing all through the nuclear fallout of DomenMed. "It must have been an important business trip, huh?"

"Not as important as _this_. I should have come right away, and not wasted another moment...!"

Her eyes have closed in her picturesque misery, yet Kyoya can still feel her gaze pinned on him. Begging or perhaps commanding that he not say a word.

Then the picturesque misery blossoms to picturesque elation. Jin claps her hands together and her ruby lips spread into a beaming smile. "I know you're not fond of surprises, Kyoya, but I just couldn't wait any longer. Surely you don't mind if I join you on just one of your romantic evenings?"

Kyoya has never wanted to say no more than he has in this moment. Yet, there are people watching. Haruhi just looks so lost and is waiting to see how he handles it. Tamaki is obviously moved by Jin's words and is patiently waiting for Kyoya's grace.

Jin is still smiling at him, her signature perfect smile that exudes joy without showing a glimpse of teeth. She knows this is not normal, and Kyoya can tell. He can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. She wants to make up for the embarrassment of not knowing her future daughter-in-law's own name.

It's such an odd thing to want to fix out of all these broken pieces, though. She won't talk about why she and Yoshio are divorcing, won't explain exactly why she didn't come home when she heard about DomenMed, won't acknowledge aloud that she apparently had so little to do with Kyoya's engagement that she didn't even know which woman he was going to marry.

 _Perhaps it's a baby step_. He at least wants to be sympathetic to his mother, despite how many elephants she's led into the room. _She should have already known Kosuke before, but at least she's trying now. At least?_

Kyoya bites just enough of his cheek to be unnoticed. It just doesn't seem to be enough. This is putting a Bandage on a gaping wound and calling it help. But still...baby steps. Or even just _a_ step. _Is it mature to be angry with someone for trying to do better?_

So, even though the idea of spending the night with Tamaki, Haruhi, Kosuke, _and_ his mother for a double-date-slash-first-meeting sounds like Hell on Earth, Kyoya nods and puts on the smile that Jin taught him. "Of course not. I'm sure Kosuke will be...ecstatic."

"Delightful! Come on, come on." Jin beckons them forward as she glides into the dining room. "I've managed to get us the best seats in the house."

"Go ahead," Kyoya tells them all. "I'm going to call Kosuke, see if anything is wrong."

None of them think anything of it. Jin scoops Tamaki to her side to talk about all the wonders she'd experienced in her travels, from the winding ribbon streets of Delhi to the neon empire of Singapore. Haruhi trails behind them, looking a bit lost, and Kyoya almost feels guilty for it. Hopefully he'll be back soon to save her from being the third wheel.

He wishes that going back into the night air would let him breathe, but it doesn't. Not when he does so to see why Kosuke is nearing twenty minutes late for their first official date.

_You need to calm down, or you'll just repeat that first dinner all over again._

Kyoya takes a breath, feels the coolness fill his lungs. All of this is about appearances. He needed to be Kyoya Ootori, the man who everyone praised for his maturity, his poise, his charm. Awkwardness was a stranger, cordiality his family. He could never, ever be Kyoya Ootori, the whining child who stomped out of dinners and gave others the silent treatment because he wanted to pout about how his crushes didn't like him back. He needs to stay Jekyll, never Hyde.

Kosuke picks up after so many rings that Kyoya thinks at first she's the voicemail tone. She sounds far from enthusiastic. In fact, she sounds like she's climbing out of a deep slumber, her voice dragging and heavy. _"Hello?"_

"What's taking you so long?"

" _Kyoya?"_ she says after a pause. She must have answered without even looking at the ID, because he knows she saved his number. _"What are you…"_ She yawns so strongly her voice creaks in her throat. The sound ignites dread in Kyoya's stomach. _"What are you talking about?"_

"What am I—?" Instead of realization hitting him like a semi-truck, Kyoya just keeps going, keeping his volume low but hissing out the words between his teeth. If only she were in front of him, without anything to hide behind. "You were supposed to be here for our date twenty minutes ago."

The silence that follows is so long and perfect that he looks at his phone to see if she's hung up on him. Finally her voice resurfaces. _"I…Okay. Okay. I can—I just need to change. I'm in my…pajamas…"_

Though he has already known it, Kyoya still feels outrage in his belly like the stab of a hot iron.

She forgot. She completely forgot about their date. Now, twenty minutes late, she is still at home, dressed in pajamas and still fighting sleep. It will take at least ten minutes for her to get ready, and the ride to Chapels would take no less than twenty.

Kyoya keeps his tone collected, but he surprises himself with how much so. He isn't soaking his words with venom anymore, they're just there. Simple and clean-cut. "There's no way you're going to make it in time."

" _I got—distracted. With school, and the childr—I'm coming."_

He can hear her desperate flitting around her room. He hears a drawer slam shut, bare feet scampering across carpet. It's honestly pathetic. Even if the table was going to be for two as it was in the beginning, they would be close to an hour past the reservation now. There is not going to be any forgiveness from that, regardless of whether the owner is their friends' cousin's half-brother's son or whatever.

"Just don't."

_Shouldn't you be happy about this?_

He should be. He tries to be. He tries to feel a spark of excitement knowing that one of his four problems this evening will no longer be worried about. It isn't even embarrassment that's stifling it. He can very easily lie to the others and say that something happened with one of Kosuke's siblings and she needed to stay home. No humiliation, no besmirching of their names—there would only be sympathy and understanding. If he needed to be distracted from Haruhi and Tamaki, then he now had his mother to do that.

What is wrong here?Did he just want something to be wrong?

It occurs to him, as he listens to the faint crackle of static in his ear, what the problem is.

_I wanted to show off to Tamaki and Haruhi._

Even as the notion triggers a visceral disgust in him, he knows it's true. Maybe for one reason, maybe for several. Maybe he thought that if Tamaki saw him and Kosuke together, that would satiate his hunger to see his best friend glowing with love. Maybe he hoped that if Haruhi watched his and Kosuke's act, it would ease her fears and apprehensions.

Maybe displaying his _adoration_ for Kosuke was his bizarre, immature, and incomprehensible way of getting back at Haruhi and Tamaki for something they never did. He had to prove to them that their being forever unattainable to him was not going to haunt him one second more—despite the fact that they had never said anything of the sort.

" _I can still—come. I'm…I'm sorry, I really did just forget. I'm coming as fast as I can."_

The sincerity in her voice goes in one ear and out the other. Acceptance falls over him in an icy sheet—the same acceptance when he learned he would have to marry, and when he realized what his marriage was going to look like. He is angry, and bitter, and hurt, and it does not matter. His feelings do not matter.

"It'll take you at least half an hour, probably more. I'm not going to make Haruhi and Tamaki and my mother wait any longer than that."

" _Not going to—Why are Haruhi and Tamaki there?"_ Something stabs him when he hears her say their names. It's a gross mixture of disgust and possessiveness. He doesn't want her to say their names so easily. He doesn't want her to know them. _"And your_ mother—?"

"Mother" is the last word he lets her say before he hangs up. She quickly calls him back, but he taps the dismissal button the second it comes up. Kosuke's name blinks away from the screen, not to appear again. What's left is the dark mirror of his phone, and his portrait within it.

He hasn't given much thought to his appearance as of late. It never occurred to him to check if what was happening within him was seeping out. He thinks he should have horrible bags under his eyes. His face should have lines that weren't there before, and his jaw should be so tight it's painful to look at.

He doesn't see anything different, though. It's still him. Nothing has changed.

 _You still look like you,_ Kyoya tells himself as he puts his phone back into his pocket. The lights of Chapels seem ethereally bright when he enters again. _Just keep acting like it._

It goes as he expects. He tells the others that something happened with the children, and she was so sorry, but she wasn't able to make it. Though Tamaki is instantly despairing, Jin heartbroken, and Haruhi unsurprised but still concerned, their understanding is universal. For the rest of the evening, it's the four of them around the best table Chapels has to offer. Jin regales them with her tales from her travels. Haruhi speaks of travelling to the States and her studies and all the things she'll do while she's gone. Tamaki speaks with the same immeasurable energy no matter what the topic, but also chimes in with his studies, his parents, the other members of the Club and what they are doing. They talk of the wedding because they can't _not_ talk about the wedding. Haruhi sits across from him. Tamaki sits beside him, time and again squeezing his shoulder, or patting his hand on the table, all fleeting touches. His mother stares without looking at him.

Kyoya acts like Kyoya. It is the only thing he can do.


	21. Porcelain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While trying to fix a horrible problem, Kosuke finds her thoughts about her fiance changing.

He's furious. Kosuke can tell.

He's not verbal about it, of course, not when they have a play to act and lines to remember. She catches it in the way his eyes go frosty when they are heard but not seen. His smiles were always fake before, but now they are cheaper than plastic. She swears that she knows he's coming because a chill sweeps into the room and brings goosebumps to her skin.

Kosuke wants to say that she couldn't care less. After all, doesn't he deserve a taste of his own medicine? Sadly, she does care.

Perhaps not on Kyoya's behalf, but it's proof that she's not holding everything together quite as well as she thought. She has been managing so far—not excelling, not floundering, just managing. She's stayed on top of all her class assignments. She has given the children proper attention and care, has played with them and read them their bedtime stories. She has been reading all the papers Shigeo gave her, even if it's to the point where she feels like her brain is about to ooze out of her ears.

She slipped on this, though. Completely dropped the ball. There are no words strong enough to describe the horror that shot through her heart when she realized that she was supposed to be with Kyoya at a fine-dining restaurant in the city twenty minutes ago, and she was dressed in her candy-kitten pajamas, passed out in a heap of blankets and papers.

Thus far, her and Kyoya's text messages consist of only three: the address of Chapels, her confirmation, and then her second apology for forgetting, which he hasn't responded to.

Does she care that Kyoya's angry? Probably not. Especially after learning that he just decided to make it a double date. She would have also been shellshocked to meet his mother, but according to Tamaki (utterly oblivious to Kosuke's confusion as to why they were _also_ at Chapels) that had been a surprise to Kyoya, as well.

She doesn't know why he wouldn't tell her that Haruhi and Tamaki were coming, but knowing him, he probably wouldn't have cared to let her know. Because, after all, she's just the stupid little brat who needs to do as she's told and stop complaining, right?

Thankfully, there have been no repercussions. Haruhi and Tamaki have not complained, only asked if they could maybe try again sometime. Kyoya has not said anything else about it, or anything else, for that matter. He hasn't said a single _real_ word to her since—only the lines on their scripts. So, forgetting the date isn't a problem. It's proof that she has problems.

Kosuke knows that Kyoya is at least a little right. Not that she's ever going to admit as much to his stupid smug face. Shigeo, too, has emphasized that the way others perceive her can make or break any deal. Forgetting her date with her fiancé might only be the first step. Then she'll forget to attend one of Minami's plays, and everyone will think she's heartless to her siblings. Then she'll forget to attend some important gala, and everyone will think she's rude and stuffy.

She just has to mind her schedule more, that's all. And her mind. No doubt she forgot about the date because it got lost in all the screaming thoughts ricocheting between her ears.

She has to keep up with the many different assignments in her college courses.

She has to care for her siblings and cannot for one moment leave them behind now that their world has flipped upside down.

She has to walk on eggshells around the father that she cannot trust.

She has to keep the phone Sugimoto gave her hidden in her pajama drawer, and wonder if taking him up on his offer will ruin her family even more.

She has to wonder what happened to her mother, and who did her the most harm, her parents, or her husband?

She has to send the loan shark her scheduled payments and pray that no one ever finds out.

She has to pretend to be in love with a man she despises but will spend the rest of her life with.

She has to keep all of this a secret.

Sometimes she forgets to breathe. Kosuke knows that if she starts to panic, she will only spiral, and she has no time for that. She knows, deep down, that she's wearing herself down mentally. It doesn't take a medical professional to tell her that she's pushing herself too far. Still, in the sparse moments where she isn't doing anything, she doesn't feel relaxed. She doesn't take a breath. She tries to figure out what she should be working on.

However, at times work and relaxation fuse together. She's attended a birthday party of a classmate. She did not know her, and gave her a very impersonal gift of a pretty necklace (bought with Shigeo's money, of course), but she bought out an entire opera house for them to see _The Magic Flute_. She, Haruhi, and Tamaki have met in the city to eat, and even if she has to lie about loving their best friend, their presences relax her. She'll miss Haruhi sorely when she leaves for the States.

There is no greater example of this, though, than Application of Culinary Skills I.

Because HOLY MOLY, she LOVES THIS CLASS.

One of the many, many, many things Kosuke loves about this class is that everyone has their own stations. Each and every one of them has their own oven, their own stove, pots, pans, knives, whisks, ladles, skewers, forks, clamps...There's even a gold plate on the corner of each one denoting their name, which she isn't even annoyed at. She feels like a competitor on a televised cooking competition, but without a drop of stress. The first day in here, when she first saw the array of knives set up on the backboard of her station—her station!—she had to swipe away drool that was spilling from her lips. She hopes no one saw.

And that's just their stations. Perhaps the Gothic pink walls and the crystal chandeliers are out-of-place, but Kosuke couldn't care less. Not when the classroom is her dreamland. A sleek row of stainless steel refrigerators, freezers, and blast-chillers line the eastern wall, without a single scratch. To the back is all of their equipment, stand mixers and woks and deep fryers, one for each and every one of them and still looking crisp and clean from packaging.

And the pantry.

Oh, sweet merciful heavens, the _pantry_...

Their pantry has been provided for them by the gods and goddesses of food and wine. The spice room is just ethereal, there's no other word for it. There are rows upon rows of spices and herbs from all over the world, paprika to anise, cardamon to Himalayan pink salt, almost _sparkling_ in their delicate glass jars in a rainbow of colors. The flour and grains are also stored with them—freshly ground and tucked immaculately away in their sacks, each and every kind imaginable. Kosuke has never seen so many different kinds of rice in one room before, and she has made it her mission already to cook with each and every one of them—basmati, jasmine, arborio…

The produce room cannot even be compared to Marché Saxe-Breteuil. Once you step in through the door and into the misty air, you've been transported away to another world, where every fruit and vegetable known to man all grow in the same soil. Kosuke thought that surely the branches and vines had to be hidden in the shadows, because she's just never seen food so _fresh_ before. The leaves are almost too green to look at. She can smell the mint from three feet away. There are fruits that seem like to burst with juice, their color coming close to neon. They would all sell for hundreds, there's not a doubt in her mind. They have all being raised from seedlings to be nothing but ambrosia. There are no brown spots, no odd shapes, not even the slightest speck of dirt. She feels horrible just for touching them.

The cooler may not trigger her appetite so much, but every time she looks in, she feels like an artist looking at countless blank canvases. No doubt she should be considered crazy for being so happy about frozen animal carcasses hung on the wall or chilled along ice cubes, but she can't help it. There is poultry, fish, beef, and pork from all over the world in here. Red snapper with crimson scales that glisten on the ice. Ham hocks just waiting to be rubbed with spices and roasted to perfection. Chickens, quails, and turkeys plucked so smoothly Kosuke thinks she'll just have to do rotisserie with them every time because she'd otherwise feel overwhelmingly guilty for mangling them.

There are just too many blessings for her to count. It seems that every time she turns around, she's met with some new wonder right out of her fantasies. How she didn't pass out during their tour, she doesn't know. The guy standing next to her asked her if she was okay because he said that she was, quote, "vibrating."

This kitchen is her therapy. Her home away from...Well, now it's just her home. She has already memorized her station down to every groove in the sleek wood. At the end of the day, she ducks her head back into the produce cooler just to look at everything one more time before tomorrow. She's even named all of her knives already, which she is aware is very strange and has not told anyone about.

She’s working with Boss today. Boss is her favorite.

"Kosuke, how..." Rika shuffles over to her station. Ten minutes in, and she looks like she's crawled through a trench in No Man's Land. The snowy white of her uniform has now been dusted in a fine layer of dirt. She's even got some on her toque, somehow. Kosuke likes Rika plenty, but somehow the poor thing gets filthy no matter what their task. "How did you get them so _clean_? I can see my reflection in them!"

She picks up one of the potatoes from Kosuke's bowl—which bothers her because come on, Rika, you're getting it dirty again, but she lets it slide—to marvel at it. They _do_ look oddly pearly for spuds. Kosuke doesn't want to brag, though. As Marti always said, you can be proud of your work while still being humble.

"Elbow grease, I guess?" Kosuke resumes her brushing of the one in her hand. The water that runs between her fingers and down the drain is tinted brown, but at least she's rolled the sleeves of her coat up to her elbow. Unlike Rika's, which now have thick brown cuffs. "You are rinsing them, right?"

"Not enough, I guess." Rika looks back to her station with despair and returns reluctantly to it. Kosuke truly doesn't want to kick the poor girl while she's already down, but...yeah, her potatoes do still look like they've been pulled right out of the dirt.

There's a sudden _SNAP_ from the station in front of her, and Kosuke almost drops her potato into the sink. Haruto stares dumbly down at his fingers, which are luckily all still there and not spilled out along his cutting board. "That scared the hell out of me." He turns to her. "These things _really_ don't want to be diced."

Kosuke asks, "Is your knife sharp?"

He inspects the blade, wet with water, with a frown. "Could be sharper."

“A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife. Please be careful.” Kosuke speaks from experience. One of her worst cuts came from forcing a knife. She doesn’t want to coddle anyone, but when she spots the student one station past Haruto's, she exclaims, "Yoshiko, do it _away_ from your body. You'll cut yourself!"

The young women stops just as the blade of her peeler is cutting into the flesh of the potato again—and if she kept bringing it as close to her wrist as she was, _her_ flesh, too. Her chinks go even pinker under her blush. "I knew I was doing something wrong. Thanks, Kosuke!"

"Oh, dear..." Benjiro's groan has her turning back around. He's looking this way and that at the small pile of diced potato on his cutting board, as if trying to figure it out. They don't need to be absolutely flawless, but they will be judged on uniformity, and this first batch is rather...not-uniform. "How am I messing up cutting a _potato_?"

Kosuke makes sure to carefully rinse her hands clean before picking up a peeled potato from his station. It's clean and free of peel, but the sides are pointed and stick out at all angles. It looks less round and more dodecehedron-like. "I think you went too deep when you were peeling. Now you have a bunch of sides on it that are going to make it hard to keep symmetrical."

Benjiro takes a look into his wastebasket. There's a nest of brown peels inside, but also just a bit too much yellow-white of meat clinging to them. "Figures. Thanks, Kosuke."

"No problem," Kosuke chirps. She likes helping whenever she can. She just hopes none of her classmates thinks she's condescending or pompous for it.

Chef Matsuhisa calls out as she stalks along the aisle. She is a tall, thin women with an upper lip as stiff and red as a ruby. All her gray hair is pulled painfully tight beneath her toque. It makes her face seem sharper than it truly is—especially her eyes, a pale brown color that is almost yellow, making her look like an angry hawk ready to swoop down upon them at any moment.

Kosuke was thrown for quite a loop when she found out she was going to be their instructor, but in the best way possible. She's been a diehard fan of her for what feels like forever. Her expertise in the kitchen is godlike, earning her at least a spot in many Japan's Best Chefs lists, and almost always the number-one title in Japan's Best _Female_ Chefs list. She has cooked for celebrities, diplomats, and more than once, the President. Kosuke has several news and magazine articles tucked in her little "Inspiration Folder" in her closet. Which is...another thing she won't tell anyone about.

"Fifteen minutes of class left," Chef Matsuhisa calls out. She has a steely contralto voice that cuts through the air crisp and clear. "Remember you will be graded on cleanliness, peeling, and dicing. You don't have to use all of your potatoes, but I will judge what you provide."

Kosuke does wish that they could do more in here—push the envelope a little bit. Is it bragging to say she already knows how to dice potatoes? But this is the only application class she can take part in without any prerequisites or a Culinary Arts focus, and she still had to take a test on kitchen safety and sanitation before she was admitted. Plus, they’re still early.

_It could be worse_ , Kosuke tells herself as she starts peeling her last potato. She wasn't planning on using all of hers, but she got finished faster than she thought she would and decided to just go for it. The glide of the blade soothes her nerves. _This is familiar, and an easy grade. Plus this is the best thing happening in your life right now, so._

"Holy _crap_ , Kosuke! What the—?!"

Rika flies over to Kosuke's station at the speed of light. Kosuke is still reeling as Rika looks so closely at her pile of diced potatoes that she's just a few scant inches away from getting poked in the eye with them.

"How the heck did you _do_ that?!"

"Do what?" Benjiro snaps from behind them—Kosuke may not know him well yet, but she knows he hates it when his focus is interrupted, which is fair. Yet the sharpness in his voice evaporates with a _"Whoa!"_ and then he has joined Rika. Then Yoshiko, and a few other chefs-in-training leave their stations behind to flock over to hers, and Kosuke is starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"What's _wrong_? _Nothing_ is wrong! Look at them!"

Yoshiko flings her arm at the pile of potato-cubes, which perhaps isn't a pile so much as it is a pyramid. Kosuke thinks she's done well, but nothing to drool over. Chef Matsuhisa instructed them to cube their potatoes, and that's what she's attempted to do.

"Look at these edges!" Benjiro plucks up one of the cubes and runs his fingertip along one of the sides. "I could cut myself on them!"

"Okay, you know what? I petition that Kosuke be removed from this class." Rika stamps her no-slip black shoe down hard on the tiled floor. Kosuke honestly cannot tell if she's joking or not. "She's clearly some inhuman cooking witch, so she has an unfair advantage."

_"Ahem."_

All sound cuts off as though someone has hit the mute button on a remote. From across the room, Chef Matsuhisa raises a thin, penciled brow at them. Somehow Kosuke didn't notice that it wasn't just a _few_ of her classmates, _all_ of them have gathered around her station to ooh and ahh. No wonder she's feeling so cramped (especially since some are still wielding their knives.)

"You now have _ten_ minutes of class left. I suggest you all focus on your own work before others'."

There's a lightspeed stampede of students gunning it back to their stations. Knives are picked up again, faucets start running water, and each and every one of them reply, "Yes, Chef!" in a perfect chorus.

Chef Matsuhisa glides her way to Kosuke's station, and she tries to quell the buzz of excitement in her chest. She used to roll her eyes at her middle school classmates for screaming and squeeing every time they saw their celebrity idols smiling on a magazine cover, or popping up on the television screen, real but miles away. Now Kosuke thinks she's about to explode just from the fact that Chef Matsuhisa is standing _right_ there judging _her_ food and aaaaAAAAHHH—

The world-renowned chef pinches one of her cubes between her finger and thumb, turning it this way and that and then turning her attention to the others. Kosuke doesn't know what she wants more, a compliment or a criticism. They're coming from one of her idols either way.

"Good." Chef Matsuhira puts the cube back down and doesn't spare Kosuke a glance as she walks away. "You can start cleaning up your station for today."

"Yes, Chef," Kosuke replies, and prays with all of her heart that she hasn't squeaked the words out.

Even _cleaning_ is something that she takes an unreasonable delight in, even if it is with the bittersweet acknowledgement that it means her haven is coming to a close for the day. By the time she's washed her knives and cutting board in the dishwasher—which is so large and powerful one could probably stuff a car in there and have it come out squeaky-clean—Chef Matsuhisa rings her dainty end-of-class bell, and students start to shuffle about cleaning up their own stations. Chef Matsuhisa picks up her clipboard and walks from one to the next, scribbling grades.

Kosuke sighs when she knows no one is listening. When she returns home to Shigeo's mansion today, with its eerily empty hallways and the bed still too new to sleep on, it will be just like any other day. A repeated schedule of digesting information she can barely comprehend, finishing up school work at the last possible minute, and playing with the children. She knows that she should be fairer to them—they're both old enough to take "I'm sorry, hun, but I'm too busy to play right now" for an answer. It's just Kosuke's fear that once she starts doing that, she will make it a habit, and she'll turn her precious baby brother and sister into nuisances.

Just as she's making the finishing touches to her station, making sure all her knives are in the right order (Princess, Duchess, Lady, Tsarina...) Kosuke looks up and sees something that makes an invisible hand squeeze around her trachea.

Suddenly the sugary pink walls and the glossy mosaic tiles become monochrome. Out of her own control, her hand comes up to her heart, which feels as though it has given its last beat, rhythm cut short by the absolute travesty—no, the horror!—in front of her:

_People wasting perfectly good food._

The students—all of them, even the ones that she liked! Even the ones she admired, respected!—were just throwing their sliced and diced potatoes away as if they were _nothing_. Junk! Trash! Lint in the dryer! Some grab them by the handfuls, others push droves with the blade of their knives, but all those poor, uneaten potato cubes go spiraling into the gaping maw of their trashbins.

Kosuke's foot suddenly shoots out behind her—just barely stopping her from collapsing backwards to the floor. She brings herself closer to her own pyramid of potatoes, back bending over them as though she were a dragon protecting her hoard of gold. She honestly thinks she is about to scream.

_Is this what we do here?_ her numb mind says. _This is the first time we've worked with actual_ food... _If I'd known we were going to be doing this, I would've left class while we were learning the different kinds of kitchen equipment! They can't force me to go against my beliefs like this!_

"Amida?" Chef Matsuhisa has called her name, her new, wretched name several times now, but Kosuke is still so unused to it that she only now looks at her. The renowned chef's whiskey-colored eyes are fixed on her, one brow again raised up. "Did you need something?"

"No, Chef. Um—Yes, Chef."

"'No, Chef, yes, Chef'? Use your words."

"Are we...really not going to be using these?" Kosuke looks to her diced potatoes and imagines them descending into the plastic darkness of a garbage bag. She's going to have nightmares tonight, she knows it. "It just seems...wasteful. Can't we...give them to the cafeteria to serve?"

"I understand your wariness to waste, Amida, but you have to learn cutting skills somehow. When you make a dish that does not come out well, does that mean you wasted the ingredients, or does it mean you now know what to do next time? Don't cry over spilled milk—or diced potatoes, in this case."

That...makes sense. Somewhat. She recalls watching cooking competitions on television—just about the only thing she _does_ watch, other than the news—and that there are sometimes rounds based solely on knife skills. She supposes they really _do_ just toss whatever vegetables they've chopped and diced and minced into the trash.

Still...this feels sacrilegious.

Chef Matsuhisa begins her end-of-class speech. "Wash and dry all your utensils and equipment and return them to their proper place. Clean and organize your stations. If you don't, you'll be penalized come your next grade. The kitchen will be open until five, as always. You're allowed to stay here and practice your culinary skills as you please, but _only_ at your station, and you will clean up after yourself afterwards. If you don't, you'll lose this privilege. I'll see you all tomorrow."

A few students drift towards the door at once, others still mingling at the dishwasher. Aprons are thrown into the linens to be washed. Coats, some stained, some spotless, shrug off of shoulders. More than one student goes into the changing rooms. Kosuke actually likes that they take their uniforms home instead of leaving them here to be washed. She likes having it hang up in her closet. It's one of the few new things that she takes comfort in.

Still, looking at her potatoes...Kosuke can't do it.

_I can...take them home? Cook them for supper tonight? Wait, no, I don't have a container. And I can't steal from the kitchen. And the cooks REALLY don't like when I just up and decide to cook dinner myself. I could put them in one of the fridges, come back with a container tomorrow. Or...will that be disobeying Chef Matsuhira's orders? Would she really care?_

Kosuke is unsure of what to do, she just knows that she can't just toss all this perfectly usable food into the trash. It always frayed her nerves down past the bones even before she discovered this burning passion for cooking, back when she could burn water. She judged unseen customers by the plates that were sent back to the kitchen—chicken with plenty of flesh still on the bones, spaghetti that just looked like they spun their fork in it a few times, and worst of all, salads that had only had the toppings picked off, leaving behind an empty bed of lettuce. All sent back by what could have been perfectly fine people, but in Kosuke's eyes, they were monsters.

Surely she can find something to do with it. The children won’t be done with school for a few more hours, still. Shigeo’s mansion isn’t _that_ far away…maybe she can leave, get a container, and come back. But if no one is in the kitchen, then it’ll probably be locked up for the day, and Chef Matsuhisa will be _enraged_ if she leaves a mountain of raw potatoes on her station. She can’t call her chauffeur. She’s been explicitly told that his job is to take her to and from places. The end. No favors.

_When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,_ Kosuke thinks, grabbing her apron and throwing it back on. _Probably not supposed to take that literally, but here we are._

* * *

The good news is that it takes much less time than she thought it would. Perhaps a little more than a half-hour. The Applewood-smoked bacon crisps up beautifully in the Dutch oven—there’s a Dutch oven, by the way, holy moly—and after dicing up the yellow onion, it’s just a matter of tossing the potatoes in with the spices and the broth and cream. Simmering takes up most of the time, and pureeing it to _just_ the right consistency. After sprinkling some fresh chives atop her bowl, Kosuke is very satisfied. It’s been a while since she’s made potato soup. It’s not exactly the right weather just yet.

The bad news is that in her blind need to not waste her potatoes, Kosuke grossly underestimated just how many there were. She only has one bowl of soup in front of her, and an entire pot of it left. There has to be twenty more servings of it, easily. So she’s right back to where she started, but now she has a liquid instead of a solid to figure out how to get out of the kitchen.

She's going to need some backup.

Washing her hands clean once more, Kosuke pulls her phone out from her back pocket.

_To: Haruhi_

_Are you busy right now??? Made soup in cul. arts kitchen and need someone to help me eat it._

As always, Kosuke can depend on her best friend for her quick help. Very quick. In fact, Kosuke thinks the message has been sent for all of three seconds when Haruhi comes bulleting into the kitchen.

"I'm here to help," she says with all seriousness. Her face lights up brighter than the sun as Kosuke pours her a bowl and passes it over to her. Kosuke only wishes that they had some chairs—Haruhi nearly melts into the floor the second she puts the first spoonful into her mouth.

"So what happened?" she asks when she's gained control of her bodily functions once more. "Did you _accidentally_ make a pot of potato soup?"

"No. We were cutting potatoes and we were going to just—throw them away. Just— _throw_ them all away! Into the trash! Perfectly good potatoes!" Haruhi clearly does not understand that this is a crime against God, so Kosuke just sighs and goes on. "I figured I'd make something with mine, but I don't have anything to bring this home in."

Haruhi sucks the cream off her spoon and takes a look into the massive pot—Kosuke turns the flame off. "Not that I wouldn't happily _try_ , but I don't think I can eat all of this."

Kosuke's lips purse as she, too, looks and sees that Haruhi's serving has not made so much as a dent. She also realizes that before she would just be throwing potatoes away. Now she'd be throwing away potatoes, bacon, onion, spices, broth...Oh, she's going to be sick.

"Hold on." She digs her phone out again.

_To: Tamaki_

_Made soup in cul. arts kitchen. Do you want some??_

She hits 'send', and the door flies open again. "Kosuke!"

"Tamaki!" She's already pouring a ladle of soup into another bowl. Tamaki bounds over to the station, standing beside Haruhi as she scrapes the cream clinging to the sides of her bowl. "I need your help eating all this soup!"

"Of course I will!" Tamaki at least pauses to blow on his spoonful (as opposed to his fiancée, whose tongue is clearly suffering the consequences) before popping it past his lips. Instantly he lets out a delighted hum that Haruhi supports with one of her own. "Kosuke, are you sure you don't want to cater our wedding?"

"It's not about not wanting to, Tamaki, it's about not having the experience. I promise I will gift you two with a _lot_ of food even if I'm just a wedding guest." Kosuke looks into the pot and instantly slaps her hands down on the counter. Tamaki and Haruhi jump. "Ugh!"

"What?" Tamaki asks, even as he's swirling his spoon around in his bowl to gather up the cream. "What's the problem?"

"This is never going to be eaten at this rate. Listen, you two. I need as many people to come get soup as is possible. How many phone numbers do you have?"

Eager to help—and perhaps a bit unnerved at her intensity—Haruhi and Tamaki obediently pull out their cellphones with their spoons sticking out of their mouths.

"I can invite the people in my law class," offers Haruhi. "Hikaru and Kaoru should be here, too. And maybe Mori and Hani."

"I have the entire student body's phone number."

Haruhi pulls the spoon from her mouth with an audible _pop_. "Why?"

"I like to send everyone birthday wishes," Tamaki answers as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. He scrolls through the many, _many_ contacts packed into his list. "Who should I invite?"

"Everyone."

Kosuke's low voice has both of them looking back at her, alarmed. Usually she regards her food with a sense of pride and satisfaction—if not, then a critical eye, mentally taking notes of everything she must improve the next time. Now, though, her eyes are dark. And determined. Looking down into the pot of potato soup like it's an enemy that she has already decided she will destroy.

"Are you...sure?" Haruhi asks first. "That'll probably create a mess, and that'll be a _lot_ of bowls to clean—"

_"EVERYONE."_

* * *

Not everyone makes it. But it's enough.

If the students were only wearing formal attire instead of casual wear, and the floor was not cluttered with the rows of stations, Kosuke would think that she actually _is_ a caterer, serving at a soiree of Japan's elite. Students flow through the aisles and cluster around the counters. The air is filled with the hum of laughter and conversation, shoes clicking across the tiled floor.

Kosuke has pulled out the half-size bowls to make the soup go longer, a problem that she is all too happy to have instead. She asks herself sometimes why it is that cooking makes her heart beat so happily, and she thinks that maybe it is just as simple as bearing the fruits of her labors. This is another joy, however: watching as so many people eat her food, _her_ food, and smile and exclaim. Maybe it inflates her ego, or maybe she's just happy to make others happy. Kosuke doesn't care. Because she's happy.

Kosuke does not know how long this impromptu party has been going, only that the soup was once only a few scant inches from the lip of the pot and is now just a few scant inches from the bottom. She knows that she will have dozens upon dozens of bowls to push through the washing machine, and she couldn't care less. For once, Ouran is not overwhelming her by its sheer size and scale. She feels at ease, and that these next years here will not be so bad as she feared.

She catches a few glimpses of familiar faces. Some only the brief flashes that she catches in the hallways, others the more constant ones in her classrooms. She doesn't feel so much like a sore thumb now—just _now_ , though. Every time she hears someone talk about their three villas in the Alpines, she's physically repelled ten feet away from them.

"Kosuke!" The youngest—no, geez, _oldest_ —Zuka comes skipping up to the station, followed with a much calmer pace by his fiancée. His younger but much taller cousin is among the crowd, talking in a quad of students. Or, listening, anyway. "You're such a good cook! You should be a chef one day!"

_Yes, that would be nice_. "Thank you very much. I think I'm just going to stick to Amida Health."

"It's very good," Reiko says in a tone that sounds a bit noncommittal but Kosuke thinks is genuine. The girl just doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve, and Kosuke can respect that. "Would you want to be a chef, if you didn't have Amida Health to leave?"

"I don't know," she lies. She busies herself with wiping a soapy towel down her station for the thousandth time. Hani is scraping up the last bits of carrot and potato with his spoon and she doesn't want to bring the mood crashing down by lamenting how she can't follow her dreams. "You're not supposed to do something you like as your job, right?"

They both hum. 'Fair enough.' Someone behind them pulls Hani's attention away, talking about more rich-people topics that sound like a foreign language to Kosuke's ears. Just as soon, his presence is replaced by none other than the Hitachiin twins, who have forgone their spoons in favor of just tipping their bowls back. Kosuke isn't filled with dread, not really. Just as long as they don't try to sneak some measuring tape around her hips again, they'll be fine.

"Not that you have a bad personality or anything," says Hikaru, "but now I'm convinced you made Kyoya go ga-ga over you with your cooking."

"Kyoya's gonna be a happy man," agrees Kaoru. He slides his fingertip around the lip of his bowl. "Fat, but happy."

"Thanks. I guess. But no, I actually haven't been able to cook for Kyoya yet." Kosuke even wonders if she'll ever have to. When she and Kyoya inevitably live in their own house, it seems expectable that they're going to have their own team of personal chefs, too. Her only other company in that far-off hellhole. "I'll pass on the warning to him, though."

"So did your mom teach you how to cook?" Hikaru sets his bowl on the edge of her station and stretches his arms out behind his head. Now Kosuke sees that he's expertly picked out all the carrots. Wasteful. "Did’ya cook in the kitchen while you guys were open?"

"Uh," Kosuke says first, just to buy her some time. She knows that she hasn't yet told them that her mother has passed, and she knows that that is—pretty bad. She knows that one day she'll hear a shout along the lines of, 'Why the hell didn't you say anything?' She just can't find the right time to say, 'Hey, my mom died, actually.' On top of that, though, has she even mentioned that she _has_ a stepfather? Had. "Yeah, I picked up a lot from her. She gave me a book of all her recipes."

"Wow." Kaoru sets his bowl down, too. Also full of carrots. _Carrots aren't that bad_. "How do you have a twenty-seven-inch waist when you grew up with cooking like this?"

"I'm going to let you try that again."

"Your mom is a very good cook."

"Thanks."

From the crowd sprouts two students that Kosuke _thinks_ she has seen before. She does not know their names, but they're smiling at her, so she smiles back, and doesn't even realize that one of them is holding a piece of paper and a pen until she's right in front of her. "Hi! You're Kosuke, right?"

"I am." The two of them are dressed like they stepped right out of a fashion magazine. One in a navy dress with long sleeves laced up to the elbow, the other in a flowing white shirt with a deep neckline to highlight the thick gold band around her neck. Kosuke has kept her uniform clean, but she feels so clumsy in her chunky black shoes and baggy pants. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"That soup is _sooooooooooo_ good," the one in the dress trills. She bestows the paper and pen to Kosuke. "Could you write down the recipe for me? I need to know how to make it."

"Oh! Of course, of course." Kosuke's laughing probably a bit stupidly, but she can't help it. There is no higher compliment than someone asking for your recipe. It's happened before, but every single time, it fills her with such a bubbly joy that she thinks she's about to float off the ground. "Just a second..."

She clicks the pen and starts scribbling—already wondering if this is going to be enough paper, because her notes go into a _lot_ of detail. She doesn't hear the footsteps approaching, but thankfully she doesn't jump as Tamaki's voice exclaims, suddenly so close, "You may want to take that to a copier. Everyone's asking for it."

Kosuke bites her tongue because she is honest-to-God about to sing. Her hand is trembling, and she presses the pen harder to the paper.

"Do you ever do caterings, or anything?" The girl with the gold wrapped around her throat asks. Her perfectly manicured hands come together. "I'm sorry if that's a dumb question, but I would honestly pay you anything."

It's a good thing that they are all on the other side of the station. Kosuke's foot is lifting up off the ground, curling up behind her. It's out of her control. "That's so kind of you to say, but I think I'm a little too busy with school right now."

She feels so stupidly happy right now, the unbridled joy of a child that just one a blue ribbon. Professional chefs like Matsuhisa accept praise with a nod and a mature smile, nothing more than a "Thank you." Here Kosuke is about to start tap-dancing. 

It's probably for the best that she won't end up being a chef. If this is what it would be like, she wouldn't be able to take it. People wouldn't come to her restaurant, the one where the cook looked like she was about to have an aneurysm every time someone complimented her cooking.

The girl in the laced dress looks around the crowd. "Where's Kyoya at?"

So much for that.

Kosuke pauses in her scribbling. The balloon has popped. The record has scratched. Her joy is gone and now everything is just beige and bland and boring.

_Of course people will ask, he's your fiancé_. _Better get used to it, hun, this is going to be the rest of your life._

"He—well." Kosuke unclicks the pen, clicks it again. Taps it on the paper, dotting it with ink. "I texted him about it, but he never responded. I think he may be busy."

They're not going to ask for proof, right? Why would they do that? It would be so snoopy. Kosuke wonders if she _should_ text him, though, just so _he_ has proof in case anyone asks. But to do that, though, she would have to see their past texts, the address to Chapels, her confirmation, her apology, and nothing else. The summary of their relationship.

Kosuke wonders, would he even come if she _had_ texted him? He may say that it would look bad for him not to come, because they are in love, and they come running when the other calls. But he may really be busy, and unable to come on such short notice. Or maybe he'd just give her a taste of her own medicine—

"Kyoya never responds when he's at work," Tamaki sighs. He folds his arms over his chest, almost sulking. _Right, he would’ve already texted him—_ "It's Thursday. That means he's busy from eleven in the morning to eleven at night."

"Right," Kosuke says quickly, and throws in a dash of embarrassment. "What was I thinking?"

She's relieved that Tamaki came to her salvation without being asked—without even knowing. But her relief melts into confusion, because she's remembering what Kyoya's class schedule is—not that she's too interested in it—and...

"Doesn't Kyoya's class _end_ at eleven?"

For a breath's length, she frets in the wake of her mistake. That shouldn't be a question, she should know his class schedule, she _does_.

No one seems to notice, though, and Haruhi, having walked up for her third serving, readily answers, "He said his professor uses the last ten minutes of class time to let them work on their assignments and discuss projects. _Kyoya_ uses that time to gun it to work as quickly as he can."

Kosuke pours another ladle, the last of the soup, into Haruhi's bowl. She nods, but she's still processing.

She still doesn't fully understand what working at a medical company entails (which she isn't proud of.) But knowing how massive Ootori Medical is, she can only guess that Kyoya's job would be a demanding one, whatever it is. An _easy_ job wouldn't keep him until almost the next day.

Kosuke's strings are being pulled tight as-is. If she had a job pulling on them, too, they would surely snap. Even when she was supposed to be going to Seneca, her mother would tell her—if not because she was too lazy to ever pull it off—that she wouldn't want Kosuke to get a job. College was demanding, she'd always warned, and a job would demand too much of Kosuke's time. Kosuke had typically ignored her, due to the immature outrage of, "You're right that I'm too lazy, but _hey_!" and the unspoken snark of, "How do you know, you didn't even go to college."

Her and Kyoya's studies must be similar, but at least Kosuke's schedule is...flexible, to a degree. The second she gets home, she has to study and work and watch the children, but she isn't shackled once she commits to one thing or the other. She can walk away from her homework for just a minute to help Hitsuji find a toy, she can take a break from studying Amida Health to take a shower. You can't double-task at a job.

Pursing her lips, she says, "I don't understand how he can do that _and_ be a college student full-time."

"It's been a mystery for years," Hikaru tells her. "How Kyoya manages to get so much stuff done in no time. If you told him he had three days to create a cure for a disease, he'd get back to you in an hour."

Kaoru adds, "We have a few theories. _I_ think that he has some kind of time-travel powers. Hikaru and Hani think that he doesn't sleep; he uses the night to get caught up on everything."

"If he didn't need to sleep," Haruhi cuts in, "then he wouldn't have been so angry about you all kidnapping him to the mall."

"What?" Tamaki's hand comes up to his heart. Aghast, horrified. "We didn't _kidnap_ him!"

"Yeah," the twins chorus. Kosuke doesn't think she's ever going to get used to their voices saying the exact same thing at the exact same time at the exact same speed. "We're sure he would have agreed to come if he was awake!"

"So..." Kosuke runs a finger on the lip of the pot. "We don't really talk about his work that much. Why does he...do it...?"

"Because he wants to," Kaoru explains simply. "Kyoya's been waiting to work at his family business since the day he was born. Once his dad gave him the opportunity, he jumped on it."

"Kyoya never lets a chance pass by," Tamaki says aloud, but almost too himself. He runs his spoon along the porcelain of his bowl, hardly making a sound, looking down at the floor. "His older brothers both waited until they were done with college to work at Ootori Medical. They wanted to focus on their studies, but Kyoya was just so eager to get started."

"Why is that?" Kosuke rubs at the back of her neck. Strands of her hair are still damp from running around the kitchen. "It's admirable, don't get me wrong, but..."

Hikaru shrugs a shoulder. "Probably because he knew he'd be good at it. After years and years of training for something, you'd probably get tired of waiting. Want to get right into it."

Kosuke just nods like she's the understanding but still new fiancée eating up all the information about her beloved that she can. Inside though, a seed of doubt is rooting in her mind, watered by that same wariness of that couple who were not "arranged" just "encouraged by their families..."

What does she know about Mr. Ootori, her future father-in-law? Next to nothing. He is serious, calm, with features made of stone. A future version of his youngest son, it seems. His children are all in arranged marriages. His daughter loves her husband, but did he choose a man who would suit his daughter well, or did she just get lucky?

If he would decide when and who his children married, what else did he decide? Fuyumi didn't work at Ootori Medical, but she wasn't the firstborn. She knows Kyoya's older brothers both work at Ootori Medical with their father. Did they decide that? Did they _want_ that, and if they did, was it a true burning desire to help in the family business, or years and years of being told that it was the only right choice?

She thinks of having a job right now, and already exhaustion seeps into her muscles. Yet Kyoya supposedly jumped right to it. For no other reason than that he wanted to. Supposedly.

He doesn't want to marry her. She knows that. They're getting married to help their companies—their _fathers'_ companies.

Kosuke recalls all the dreaded thoughts that had creeped into her mind after she agreed to it. She would never be able to fall in love. She might have to have children with this stranger. She will forever have "his wife" as a title, never to be shed, tattooed into her identity.

There was no telling if he'd had the same thoughts.

Perhaps he had agreed, but again, because it was the only right option. Maybe he thought working at the company despite so much hard work was his only choice. She does not know Yoshio Ootori, but she cannot ignore the sinking feeling that he may be just like the parents of that engaged couple. He will give his children decisions, but he will point to the right answers.

She reminds herself, _That's no reason to treat me like garbage._

She knows that, but as she thinks it, she realizes that she's trying to make herself be angry. She _is_ angry, but it's old now. The fire has died down to ashes, still there, but lifeless. She can be angry about how he treated her— _treats_ her—without boiling with rage. But _should_ she be boiling with rage?

She does not want to be the owner of Amida Health, and maybe Kyoya doesn't want to work at Ootori Medical. Neither of them want to marry one another, that's a fact. All these changes, though, they happened to her not so long ago.

For Kyoya...It could have been his whole life. Since he was a child, being told that _this_ is what you will do, end of story.

That kind of frustration would fester and blister under her skin for years and years. Could she be blamed if she was a little snippy to people? Could she be blamed if she just couldn't make herself be lovey-dovey with the partner in her jail cell?

Still that one hand hangs onto that desire to be angry. She thinks it is embarrassment. If there was an understandable reason for Kyoya's behavior towards her, then that means she was wrong to be angry, and everything she's said to him since has been nothing more than her being petty. She hates to think that she has wasted so much energy being angry at someone who didn't deserve it.

"Doesn't he ever..." Kosuke swallows. Her lips feel dry. "Does he ever seem bothered by it? He tells me he's fine, but...I don't know, sometimes I think he's lying."

The reactions are varied. Kaoru and Hikaru both look up towards the ceiling, thinking. Hani does the same, looking downward. Haruhi and Tamaki are the only ones who look at each other, and when Haruhi breaks the silence, her voice is restrained with hesitance.

"It seemed like that for a while, yeah." She purses her lips. "It seemed like...work and school were starting to overwhelm him, but he wouldn't let himself admit it. Like he was embarrassed."

"Really?" Hani's brows knit together tightly between his brows. He looks between all his friends, distressed. "I didn't notice!"

"To be fair, he wasn't around as much _to_ notice," says Hikaru. "We stopped hanging out as often since he was so busy. It's just now that I'm looking back on it that he seemed pretty irritable. Like, more than usual."

"I don't know if I was ever really _worried_ , though." Kaoru goes on to explain, folding his arms across his chest. "Kyoya's always been a hard worker. Even if he seemed moodier, he wasn't collapsing."

"Just because he _can_ do something doesn't mean that he _should_ ," Haruhi tells them. Her mouth has pulled into a deep frown. "You can take a break every now and then and still be a hard worker. I don't mind that he wasn't hanging out with us, but doing nothing but work, work, work for so long starts to hurt you after a while."

Kosuke stays as the audience for a minute. They don't seem to hear their words the way she does. They hear that Kyoya pursued something he desperately wanted and only realized after the fact that it might have been too much. Kosuke hears that maybe Kyoya _never_ wanted this and is just trying to save face.

Saving face. That seems so important to him.

"Guess I should've been paying more attention," she tries to laugh. She means for it to sound lighthearted. She knows she sounds embarrassed instead. "I don't think I'd be able to do that much work all at once."

"Don't beat yourself up over it," the twins tell her together. Finally, despite their nonchalance, she hears some sincerity seeping through. No matter all the horror stories Tamaki has told her about them, they are friends nonetheless, and there must be a reason.

"Kyoya is not an open person," Reiko tells her. Her hands are clasped together in front of her waist. "If you haven't been close to him for some time, you won't pick up on his cues. He and I aren't well-acquainted; I never noticed anything that's been mentioned."

_Doesn't that seem odd to them?_ Kosuke's eyes go to each of them in turn, but she finds nothing. No suspicion. No wariness. _If I'm so in love with him, I should know that._

"You know..." Tamaki's voice pulls her attention back to him. She's surprised by the gleaming smile she sees there. "Ever since he met you, he's been so much better!"

Something happens to her chest. It goes hollow, or it fills completely. Something unpleasant. "Really?"

"Absolutely! He's so much happier now, you can tell."

"Now that you mention it," Kaoru says, peering up at the ceiling once more. "Last Friday we actually had a conversation that didn't begin and end at, 'I have to go to work now.'"

"Yeah, yeah!" Hani nods his head with such enthusiasm that his honey-blond curls go bouncing. "He really likes talking about you, and your wedding. It really perks him up! Right, Mori?"

Mori had only arrived a few minutes prior, standing to the back to just listen in on their conversation. Kosuke has never see the man's facial expression change from anything but neutral—it still doesn't as he tells her, in his very low voice, "He's happier."

"It seems almost magical, how greatly his mood has improved since you've arrived." Despite the romantic words, Reiko's voice is... _wary_. Her eyes narrow just so on Kosuke. "Have you placed a spell on him?"

Kosuke laughs before she can help it.

"I'm not joking."

"Oh. Uh—no?"

Reiko's eyes stay narrowed. Tamaki continues talking, as if Kosuke had not just been accused of actual, literal witchcraft. "I haven't been able to drag him out of the house for so long, but he was so looking forward to our double-date…I think being with you relaxes him. He finally put time aside to do something that would make him happy."

“Ah, that is so _sweet,”_ says one of the girls, who have just been listening in this whole time. Kosuke realizes she has been writing out the recipe in a daze, the words going from detailed and passionate to robotic and blunt. “You’re so lucky!”

That... _thing_ in her chest continues. Kosuke just suddenly feels so wrong. Her shoes are too tight on her feet. Her skin doesn't fit on her bones. She is out-of-place. A puzzle piece in the wrong box.

"Here’s the recipe.” Kosuke hands the girl the paper and grabs the empty bowls on her station with maybe too much force. The spoons rattle. “I'm going to...Get started on these. I probably already have a mountain back there."

She flees to the dish room before anyone can stop her. She isn't lying. Some have already been kind enough to bring their used bowls and spoons to the back, but none have gone through the washer or dryer yet, and many have not been sprayed out into the grinder. Kosuke rolls her sleeves up and takes a breath. She tries to get her skin to fit right.

All this time, she'd only felt guilt when she thought of her mother, for shaking the hand of the man who had hurt her. Maybe she felt a little bad for making Haruhi worry, but that was different.

Now she was feeling guilty for Kyoya, who'd she'd called—whether out loud or in her head—a bastard, a jerk, pompous, pretentious, smarmy, smug...

_He can't be a bad guy if he has that many friends. Especially if Tamaki and Haruhi are among them_.

She puts her hands into the rhythm of grabbing bowls, spraying them with the nozzle, and setting them into the washing racks. She hopes the monotony will help her space out, but it doesn't. She keeps thinking a mile a minute.

_Would all of this have been avoided if I'd just practiced some empathy?_ She wonders _. If I hadn't just assumed things before he could explain them, if I wasn't so defensive?_

The devil on her shoulder tries to remind her that she _does_ have reason to be angry with him. He was so rude to her at their first meeting, as if she'd done something to insult him.

But the angel on her other shoulder reminds her that he was probably just stressed and angry. He wasn't _right_ to lash out at her, but he had a _reason_.

He stormed out of the room to talk on his phone, but she didn't _know_ he was going to talk on his phone, and he thought that she was texting away on hers instead of paying attention to him, but he couldn't have known that she was talking to Haruhi about the children...

This whole situation is just a hurricane brought on by misunderstanding after misunderstanding, Kosuke realizes.

If things had gone differently, she and Kyoya may not be like they are now. Kyoya might still be angry with her for forgetting their date, and rightfully so, but it wouldn't be more gasoline on the fire.

_If things hadn't gone like this, keeping this secret would have been easier,_ Kosuke thinks with a sigh. The second rack slides into the washing machine, the soapy water sloshing behind the curtains. She walks over to push the first set into the dryer. _I can't just stand there and listen to all his friends talk about how I've made him happier when I know I've done just the opposite._

"Kosuke, let me help you with that!"

Tamaki's voice makes her jump, and she almost drops a spoon down into the grinder. Tamaki has beelined for the other end of the dryer, pulling the pristine sleeves of his shirt up before taking out the steaming bowls one-by-one.

"Oh, no, you don't have to—"

"No, no. It's not fair for you to cook for all of us _and_ have to take care of all the dishes." Tamaki grabs a tower of porcelain bowls in either hands. The idea alone makes Kosuke feel clumsy, but with Tamaki's long, piano-playing fingers, it seems not a problem at all for him. "Where do these go?"

Kosuke lets out a sigh, unsure if she's thankful to him for interrupting her nervous breakdown or upset that her solitude has been destroyed. "In that cabinet over there."

Somehow he manages to open the door _and_ keep all the bowls together. They fall into a new rhythm: Kosuke sprays the dishes and feeds them to the washing machine, then Tamaki pushes them into the dryer and puts them back to their rightful places. It never crossed Kosuke's mind to be bothered by dealing with the dirty dishes. Somehow she enjoys _that_ part of the culinary experience, too.

"I'm sorry if what I said made you feel bad," Tamaki says out of nowhere. She pulls her attention away from the bowl in her hands and instantly regrets it. The man's violet eyes look so unbearably _guilty_. "We all know you couldn't make it the other night, no one holds it against you. Especially not Kyoya!"

_Wrong_. "No, no, it's fine. I know no one's angry. It's just..."

Kosuke says the words without even knowing what she's going to say. Tamaki watches her as he pushes the next set of dishes through the dryer. "Just what?"

"I feel...sorry for him, I guess." It's easier to lie when there's a grain of truth to it, she thinks. She's still in shock that her schoolgirl-with-a-crush act managed to convince Haruhi. "I knew he was busy, but I didn't realize he was _that_ busy."

"Like we said, Kyoya's always been a hard worker." Tamaki puts on an easy smile. "He never backs down from a challenge, and he likes to prove himself."

"But Haruhi said he was pushing himself too hard."

"He can do that, too. But before you get too worried, just know that it wasn't just work and school that was stressing him. You already know what happened with DomenMed."

Kosuke nods. "Maybe not every single fine detail, but I think I get the gravity of it, yeah."

"When everyone found out DomenMed was leaving Ootori Medical, there was almost a panic. Supporters of the company were considering leaving because they wondered if it would survive a blow like that. People started gossiping about what would happen to the workers." Tamaki shakes his head and sighs. "I knew Kyoya needed space when that happened, but it was hard not to worry about him. It was like everyone in Japan was watching his family, trying to see what they would do next."

As the washing machine rumbles, Kosuke thinks back to the Lily Bowl, alone back in Karuizawa, with no one entering its doors to fill its walls with life. She'd always morbidly wondered what might happen if it had to close for good, and then it had. No income, no support, nothing but the big question, "Now what are you going to do to keep yourselves afloat?"

She doesn't think the Ootoris would ever hit that low. They're wealthy enough that if you burned half their money, they'd still have too much to fit into one bank vault. Not once had she ever thought about the employees, though. Was it not just common sense that a company whose income had just been slashed would have to let employees go just to make up for the loss?

_I have to take care of the children, but at least I don't have to think about hundreds of men and women and_ their _children, too._

"He couldn't help but think he had to do something. It was his family. Honestly..." Tamaki taps a finger on his temple, sighing again. "If I'd known it was all going to happen, I never would have thought about asking him to help us with our wedding plans. No doubt _that_ didn't help. Even before DomenMed left, there was Amaya he had to deal with."

"Amaya?" Kosuke tests the name on her tongue, but the sound isn't familiar. Another company, or a person? Perhaps she should know, but it's too late now that she's parroted the word aloud. "Who's Amaya?"

"She's...You know what?" Tamaki waves both his hands at her, shaking his head. "If Kyoya hasn't told you, he probably doesn't want you to know." Tamaki tugs the next rack through without looking at it. His attention is all on her, gaze as soft as his voice. "Anyway, none of us knew how to help him, or what would happen. But then you came along."

"I…came along."

"I know it was lucky for the Ootoris, financially. Amida Health will be a great partner for them, and you're the unmarried heiress around Kyoya's age, and all that...But more than that, you made Kyoya happy!" Tamaki's hands curls into fists and shake with his intensity. "He told me before that he was probably just going to marry whoever would be best for his family, but I always told him that his father would never force him to be unhappy. I know Mr. Ootori can be very..."

Tamaki's shining face shifts for just a moment, as though recalling a memory with a bitter taste. Kosuke wonders what it is. "... _critical_ sometimes, but I know he thinks about Kyoya's happiness. And I was right! Now Kyoya has someone he's happy with, and who will be there for them."

Listening to all of this, Kosuke reminds herself that Tamaki isn't stupid. He isn't. He's naive, yes, and emotional, but not stupid.

But _how_ he is not piecing this together is beyond her. DomenMed leaves Ootori Medical, the Ootori children already have a history of marrying the most financially profitable people, and here comes a girl who not only _just_ received the offer of heirdom for her father's business, but also _just so happens_ to click with Kyoya instantly. How does he not realize that Kyoya did not 'get lucky' with her? How does he not see that her father sought her out for the specific purpose of marrying her off?

He doesn't, and Kosuke doesn't get to look at the gears turn in his head as he does. All she sees is a sweet man so happy for his dearest friend, who has been suffering for so long—more than he realizes.

New guilt mutates in her heart. The mother who tried to protect her daughter from a monster, her efforts poured down the drain. The man forced to marry someone he never wanted to, because there are too many voices telling him he must. The best friend watching him heal, who would break if he discovered it was all a lie.

_I'm sorry,_ Kosuke doesn't say as she looks at him. _I'm sorry I've made such a mess of things with your best friend, Tamaki. I'm sorry your reason not to worry anymore is a lie._

"Thanks, Tamaki..." His eyes sparkle back at her. She turns back to the dishes, unable to look at them anymore. "You're too sweet, you know?"

"I only speak the truth!" Tamaki sweeps up the next clean bowls and spins on his heel with all the grace of a ballerina. "I can't think of anyone better for him."

_If she exists, I've stolen her spot._

The bowls that she washes are still whole. No chips, no damages. Still Kosuke sees thousands of broken shards in front of her, and she doesn't know how to fix them. She doesn't think she can, not perfectly. She's lost some of the pieces already.

But she thinks, that if she tries, maybe she can make it work. She can put some of them back together. It won't be perfect, but it'll be less of a mess than what it was.

"Tamaki." She turns away from the sink to him. He stops his stacking in the cabinet to give his full attention. "Since Kyoya's been busy lately, I haven't actually had the chance to cook for him yet."

"I heard. I feel bad for him...But you'll have plenty of chances to do it now! I think if you just serve him boiled water, it's going to impress him."

"Right," she laughs, unsure of what else to do. She's wringing her fingers, looking down at them in the breaks where she can't look up at him anymore. "So...I feel stupid that I even have to ask this, but what do you think I should make for the first time?"

Tamaki presses a long finger against his lips, thinking hard. Kosuke can almost physically see the lightbulb over his head when he realizes his answer. That, and the tail wagging behind him. "Oh! So one time we were on a school trip to Barcelona, and at one restaurant he got seafood paella. I think that's the one time he was really impressed with a restaurant's food! Do you think you could to that?"

That evening, sitting in her four-poster spaceship of a bed, Kosuke squints through the glow of her laptop at the twenty-plus tabs of paella recipes. She needs to find the right one. The best one. Then she'll just have to figure out when she's actually going to cook it for him.


End file.
